


Hey, Mr President, how do you do? Can we get some angst for you?

by Slice_of_Sponge



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: 3.2/4 SBI family (with .2 coming from like one line mentioning Wil), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, At least I like to think there's humour, Blood and Injury, Exile, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, How do tags work uh oh, Humour, Nothing like some good ol angst, Panic Attacks, Psychological Trauma, Tubbo-centric, everything is platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 06:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28347252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slice_of_Sponge/pseuds/Slice_of_Sponge
Summary: “I said get out,” Tommy growls.  Tubbo pushes himself back up, ignoring the heaviness of his soaked clothes and the croak in his voice.“I’m not leaving.  I – I wanted to see you – Imissedyou! I – I thought,” he tries to swallow down the lump.  This time, it doesn’t go away and the words catch in his throat.  Whathadhe thought?His mouth shuts firm with a click, but he doesn’t look away from Tommy, even if it feels as though he’s being burned from the inside out with the intensity of Tommy’s glower.  Even if it feels like all the strength in his body has been leeched away.“Oh, oh, oh – So,nowyou miss me? Just when Dream, who is, by the way, theonlyfriend I have – the only friend I cantrustin this fucking hellscape of a place, is conveniently absent?” Tommy snarls and Tubbo feels something twist in his chest at the scoff that escapes Tommy’s lips.  “Bull-fucking-shit.  You’re just here to mock me or pity me orwhateverthe fuck it is you wanna do.”Or: the fic where Tubbo doesn't wait a billion years to check up on his best friend, who's stranded out in the middle of nowhere.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Tommyinnit & Tubbo
Comments: 18
Kudos: 272





	Hey, Mr President, how do you do? Can we get some angst for you?

**Author's Note:**

> Written after the stream on the 6th Dec, and loosely follows what happens after then.
> 
> Man, I like angst and characters suffering as much as the next guy, but this arc was so painful I went and wrote a whole ass fic on it. Time well-spent if you ask me.

“Stay here and watch over l’Manberg for me. Contact me immediately if something comes up, okay?”

Fundy and Quackity exchange glances, tight-lipped and hesitant. Tubbo pulls the furred coat a little tighter around his shoulders and though it’s nowhere near freezing enough in the crisp January air, he feels cold enough to make up for the lack of snow. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing, man,” Quackity says as Fundy fixes Tubbo’s scarf, tying it in a way so that it won’t come loose. Tubbo offers a small smile, brushing his fingers against the cool metal strapped against his wrist. The magic hums against his fingertips, the reassurance of a promise.

“I’ll be back,” he says and can’t help but feel a little guilty that he can’t provide any more details at the worried looks he receives. 

They watch him leave, slipping away just as the sun’s disappeared behind the horizon to bathe the lands in shadow. He doesn’t think he’s ever been more thankful for his short stature than at that moment. 

His trip to the portal hidden in the forest is full of leaves and rustling bushes in the dark. A few times, he catches a glimpse of bright green and almost has a heart attack, before he realises that it’s only due to the torches stretched across the land and berates himself for being dramatically jumpy. 

When he reaches the lava pool, bubbling and blistering heat that has him loosening his scarf just a little, he pulls out his communicator from his pocket to send Phil a quick message. Then, with a soft inhale as he readies himself, he steps through the swirling purple of the portal and into the dark red of the nether.

The world looks blurry and wobbly, like he’s underwater, and Tubbo has to take a moment to clear his head and re-orient himself to his surroundings. The nether is alive with the sounds of the dead as Tubbo feels along the netherrack cliffs, searching for –

Ah.

His pickaxe is loud in his ears as he mines away, and his hand is slick with sweat. Every small noise, every minute movement is amplified in his nervousness, constantly on edge as he braces for an impromptu fight. 

He’s so focused on everything around him, that at one point, he slips up and drops the pickaxe at one point. The blunt end of its head makes contact with his boot and a dull pain travels through his toe into his spine. _Ow_.

But, the thought that beyond this wall, there’s a friend he’s left injured and alone, has him gritting his teeth and picking up his pace. What he’s done, and what he’s _decided_ to do – both inflict an immeasurable pain on the small, lonely world he’s left him in. 

Tubbo feels like he’s melting and his movements are getting sloppier with each swing. His clothes cling to him like a second, slippery skin. But the visceral need to see his best friend, to _help_ Tommy far outweighs the ache building in his arms and he carries on, violently rejecting the urge to rest.

It takes a long time until he’s cleared the netherrack blocking the way to the second portal and by the time he has, his flask is almost empty. It doesn’t help that his water literally evaporates before his eyes each time the lid is unscrewed.

He wipes away the sweat gathering at his brow and forges on; mostly to find where his compass leads to, _who_ his compass leads to, but the sweltering heat certainly helps with his desire to leave as soon as possible.

Tommy would probably have made fun of him the entire way.

Tubbo never thought he’d miss the sound of it.

The nether bleeds away to the overworld and Tubbo heaves a sigh of relief when a strong gust of cold wind blows by him. There is only ice and snow as far as the eye can see.

He trudges on, eyes trained on his communicator as he walks, and he sends his thanks to Phil once he gets the coordinates to his home. The wind seems to be picking up in both size and strength, and though Tubbo’s pulled up his hood and brought his scarf over his nose and mouth, it does little to quell the chill beginning to set in.

“Damn,” he mutters, wiping his nose; he can’t tell if it’s runny or not. It doesn’t really come as a surprise that the thickest coat back at l’Manberg can’t stand against the frigid cold of the North, but it still sucks ass. He hisses, breath fogging up his vision. “If only Tommy hadn’t…”

If only Tommy hadn’t broken his only connection to l’Manberg. If only Tubbo had tried a little harder. If only he wasn’t so _weak_ as to not even being able to stand up for his best friend. His best friend who’d stuck by him for his entire life.

He scoffs and shakes his head.

_It all comes down to him, doesn’t it?_

*

He spends an eternity walking through the blinding blizzard around him – and really, it’s just his luck that he got stuck in a blizzard, isn’t it? – and nearly collapses right then and there when he finally catches sight of a flicker of yellow and orange in his periphery. Torchlight.

“Finally.”

There’s a lot of torches, all scattered out in a dizzying array, and it’s only thanks to Phil’s message and sheer _luck_ that he manages to find the house. The doors are unlocked when he pulls and he yelps as it’s wrenched out of his grip, caught in the strong wind. 

He fights with nature over it for a good while, but ultimately comes out as the victor and manages to slam it shut. Immediately, the howling outside is blocked out and Tubbo is left in the quiet, interrupted only by the faint sounds of crackling fire.

For a minute, he only slumps against the door to catch his breath.

The warmth of the home is inviting and Tubbo pulls down his hood and scarf to shake the half-melted snow out of his hair. He sheathes the axe he’d brought with him – he’ll have to polish and wipe it down tomorrow – and moves further into the house in hopes of finding Phil.

He knows that the man’s been absent a _lot_ from his home in l’Manberg recently. He also knows how close he and Techno are – Techno, who’s been missing since November. Techno, who’d put a firework to his heart twice over now. 

Techno, whose face stares back at him from the painting hung on the wall. Tubbo wonders if he’d painted it himself.

_Phil? Where are yuou?_ he types into his communicator when he’s finished combing the house. Save for the few mobs trapped beneath the floorboards (and an extra one in a boat), it seems that he’s alone.

There’s a cold plate of carrots and peas along with a note waiting on the kitchen counter:

_Gone out to check on turtles. Mashed potatoes and steak in the furnace – eat with your veggies :)_

_\- Phil_

Tubbo raises his brows, but saves his questions for later and instead, pulls out the still-warm plate from the furnace. He’d mentioned bees a few months back, maybe Tubbo could help give some pointers now that he was here. Maybe that could be a fair trade for his help.

The first time that the feeling of something being wrong comes when he’s finished eating and there still isn’t a single peep from Phil. His messages have gone unread and Tubbo worries, just for a moment, that perhaps the same thing that’d happened with Tommy is now happening with him.

However, when he checks, there is no red exclamation point beside his messages to indicate an interference.

He waits a little longer, figuring that he’s just busy, what with the blizzard raging outside and all. But he can’t completely rid the fact that the blizzard can very much injure a person.

He tells himself that _this is Phil_ and that such a thought is ridiculous.

At just a few seconds off of midnight, Tubbo sends out another message, this time asking if he’s alright, if he needs any help. It appears in their chat, delivered, and goes unread. Tubbo huffs and gazes out the window, where there’s only a flurry of white against black.

_Surely,_ he tells himself, _surely, nothing’s happened._

He’s still anxiously waiting for Phil’s reply when he finds the framed portrait on the mantle of the fireplace. He’d known that Techno and Phil were close, he’d known that there was something Wilbur refused to tell him about Techno – a closeness between the two that implied more than just being mere acquaintances caught in war, and he’d known that Phil was like a father to Wilbur, both in life and death.

With the family picture before him, all of them looking even younger than he is now and carefree with grins and shouts, it really isn’t hard to see why.

For all the years that it must have been in either Techno or Phil’s possession, there isn’t a single scratch or tear in the paper.

There’s only one face in the portrait that he cares about, however, only one that stings his eyes and presses his throat closed.

The door slams open with a loud _BANG!_

Tubbo whips around, eyes wide and legs braced to flee. However, there is no cold stare from beneath a gold crown, nor are there any signs of a hostile mob’s infiltration. Tubbo relaxes, the relief crashing into him in towering waves, and he huffs a soft laugh. No, it’s only –

“Phil!”

Phil startles and turns to face him. In any memory Tubbo can think of with him in it, Phil’s always been the most composed out of all of them (or weirdly excited, usually when concerning… questionable means to an end), whether in the midst of the chaos that erupts around him or even when face-to-face with the threat of death. The only time Tubbo has ever really seen him lose his composure was when Wilbur had thrust the hilt of his sword into his hands, curled his fingers around it, and begged to be killed. When he had granted the only mercy he could to his own son.

So, when Phil looks at him with wild eyes and Tubbo sees the fear, so blatantly obvious in an unnatural sight, it has the world turning grey real quick. 

A pit’s beginning to form in his stomach as he watches Phil hurry inside – _and is that_ blood _on his shoulder?_ – and he’s about to ask if he needs help, when the breath is forcefully squeezed out of his lungs.

“Tubbo?” Phil says, breathless. It falls on deaf ears.

Trailing behind him, with an arm pressed to his stomach and a pallidness to his skin, is Technoblade. The sight of the crimson robe and the royal blue bring a ringing to Tubbo’s ears as he can only stare, frozen. 

“Phil?” Tubbo repeats shakily and he can’t take his eyes off of the red cloth. He can’t look up and he can’t look away. 

It’s the same red that had swirled around him, bursting free from his chest, from his head, from the end of Techno’s crossbow, and he suddenly feels like he’s going to be very, very sick. Almost as if in warning, his stomach lurches.

“When’d you get here, Tubbo?” Silence. Tubbo’s still staring at the robe. The red, red, red, red robe – and blue. Red and blue popping into his veins, into his body: _Pop! Pop! Pop!_ His face burns, his chest has burst open like an overinflated balloon. His remains are only charred bone. His ribs greet the world, red beating within, thumping, _thump_ – “ _Tubbo_!”

“I – I…” His gaze is torn away, the sides of his face burn. And, oh god, he’s on fire and he’s burning and he’s screaming – his ears are screaming, his eyes are screaming, his larynx is screaming as it’s cut out – no, _torn_ out. He can’t scream. _He can’t scream._

Tubbo’s voice breaks high, like a string stretched too much, too tight. 

There’s a murkiness to his surroundings. It’s dark, it’s silent. Oh. Is he dead? Is he waiting for his body to be pieced back together, stich-by-stich, limb-by-limb? Is he waiting?

_Is Tommy waiting?_

He needs to get back to Tommy.

He needs to –

“Tommy…?”

“No, no, it’s Phil – you need to breathe, Tubbo, okay? Follow me, okay? In for 4 –”

“– Out for… Out for 8.”

Keep your cool.

_“Now you’re great.”_

Tubbo blinks languidly and feels something warm trail down from his eyes. But, it’s not sticky and when he puts a hand up to wipe it off, it doesn’t come back red. There’s no bright flashes of popping sparks and Tubbo feels his chest ease just a bit.

He can breathe again, can see again. He’s not on fire, he’s not dying, he’s not waiting. He looks up, flinching at the blue that follows him, but then he meets Phil’s gaze and –

Green blinks beside his face, glimmering in the fire’s light. The emerald flashes at him, almost as kindly as Phil’s looking at him (or maybe that’s just Tubbo’s sleep-deprived brain) and the stone trapped in his chest finally dislodges, air flooding into his lungs as Tubbo coughs.

That’s right, the coldest months in winter in l’Manberg are nothing compared to the warmest days in the North. He’s here, he’s made it.

“There you go,” he says, still sat on the ground in front of him. Tubbo doesn’t move a muscle for a whole second, but then he releases everything in one, heaving sigh. He wipes a hand down his face with a shaky groan. Phil chuckles and stands.

“Were you waiting long?” Phil asks as he pulls out a table from the wall with one hand. He’s trying to distract him and Tubbo’s gratitude for the man grows. He wants to help, but he doesn’t think he has the strength to even help himself off the ground.

“Not really,” he says with a shrug. Phil gives him a sidelong, cautious glance as he ushers Techno to sit, before hurrying down the ladder. 

Tubbo tries to tamp down whatever he feels rising within him, crawling up his throat. He stays on the ground, staring stubbornly at his feet with a shaky exhale. _Don’t look at him, don’t look at him._

“Uh, thanks for the food, by the way,” he says. His tongue feels like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth and when he swallows, his throat stings.

Phil might have said something back, but it’s drowned out by the clattering of boxes and the creaking of wood as he returns with a good number of medical items. Tubbo eyes them warily as he lays them out on the table.

“Don’t you have healing pots? Or regen?” Tubbo asks. He feels a little better, able to curl in his fingers and toes, even if they feel like detached appendages to a transparent body. 

Phil sputters a curse and darts to the chest beside him, rummaging through it. Tubbo hears him muttering under his breath about how _it’s supposed to be here. Where the fuck is it?_ and hesitantly joins him. He makes sure to put both Phil and the chest in the way of table, blocking out Techno’s form entirely.

“Think we ran out,” says Techno quietly and his voice has Tubbo’s blood turning to ice. His fingers freeze around the edges of the chest. He can’t feel them. 

He does his best to steady his breathing as Phil says something back. _Focus, focus, focus, focus, focus…_

The cramped room is quickly fading, his peripheries black, and Tubbo’s head spins. He needs to get away – it’s too hot, burning. His skin is burning.

There’s a hand suddenly on his shoulder and Tubbo violently flinches away. The hand retracts, but he hears a muffled voice, drowned out in the noise of fizzling gunpowder. Techno grunts, stumbling off of the table and towards him. Tubbo presses himself further against the wall, watching him, hyperaware to every small movement he makes.

There’s red all over him, red and blue and white and _scorching_ , and Techno’s moving towards him – he’s going to die, he’s going to die, he’s going to –

“I’ll just, uh,” Techno gestures vaguely before he disappears down the ladder, leaving Tubbo alone. Tubbo, who can’t breathe, who can’t hear Phil, who can’t hear anything except the ringing in his ears.

As time ticks on and the house stays static, Tubbo slowly comes back; visions of fireworks upon the gallows trickling away, leaving behind only Phil’s soft words,

“You’re okay, you’re safe. Tubbo, can you hear me? Do you know where you are?”

“I… I –” Tubbo’s throat clogs up and he stops speaking altogether, curling into himself and drawing his knees up to his chest to bury his face in his arms. Phil rubs circles into his back as he waits for him to regain his breathing. 

It takes a long while for him to calm down, but Phil stays by his side through it all, patient, and when Tubbo can finally think coherently, he croaks a small,

“I’m sorry.”

Phil’s mouth twists into a sort-of-frown, sort-of-grimace, but he says nothing more.

He leaves Tubbo some privacy to compose himself, moving back to the table to and gathering the supplies. And even though he’s right there, across the room, Tubbo suddenly feels like he’s alone once more – an emptiness to his side that he can’t seem to shake. 

He jumps when a noisy screeching from across the room pierces through his thoughts, and Tubbo looks up to see Phil at the fireplace, tossing a couple of coals into the fire.

He looks back and pats the chairs invitingly.

The fire burns brightly, lighting up the room in warm hues, and Tubbo wonders if Tommy has any ounce of the same comfort he has right now. Phil shuffles before him, feathers scraping against the back of his chair, and it draws Tubbo’s attention back to him. There’s a question in his eyes as he stares at him and Tubbo sighs.

“I need your help, Phil,” he says. There’s a brief flicker of hesitation, but Tubbo licks his lips and pushes on to continue, “I… can’t get him on my own. Dream… Dream’s away from l’Manberg nowadays. A lot. He’s usually always so on top of things, always lurking – it’s weird.”

“So, you think he’s up to something?” Phil asks and Tubbo crosses his arms with a nod.

“I think he’s planning something with Tommy. None of my messages go through and he doesn’t talk to us anymore, and Dream’s really the only person who can control that, right? I just…” He twists and fidgets with the compass tied around his wrist – a nervous tick that doesn’t escape Phil in the slightest. Tubbo shrinks in on himself a little, shoulders hunching forward and eyes trained on the fire. “I don’t want him to get hurt.”

Phil hums in thought, leaning back and folding his arms. The fire crackles loudly in the quiet that follows. In the silence, someone whispers a very faint, very soft, _You’re already too late._

“Tubbo, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that _I_ can do much –”

“You and T-Techno,” Tubbo says, pressing past the lump in his throat at the name. Phil’s gaze snaps onto him, unreadable, and Tubbo swallows. “You and Techno are the only ones I know who stand a _chance_ against him. Please, Phil, I just want him to come home – I just –” and to his mortification, the waver in his voice turns into a hiccup. “I want him back – I really do, it’s just… I didn’t think – I thought I was doing the right thing. For the nation.”

Phil’s arms are around him in an instant and Tubbo clings to his shoulders as he fights back a sob, struggling against his closing throat. Phil is warm, incredibly warm against the fireplace, and Tubbo, despite everything, despite his best friend most likely freezing out in the wilderness, alone, finds himself not wanting to leave. It makes him sick to his stomach.

“I’m sure you did what’s right, Tubbo,” Phil soothes, carding his hand through his hair. Tubbo doesn’t look up, refuses to look up. His fingers go numb from how tightly he clutches onto Phil, how tightly he keeps his grip around the feeling rattling around and falling apart in his chest.

It still slips through in a broken whimper.

“Then why does it _hurt_ so much?”

*

Tubbo wakes up the next day with a pounding headache and a staggering heaviness. He would normally feel no discontent in just staying in the chair (the clock reads early morning – early enough to still be dark), but his eyes feel puffy and his mouth is dry. So, with reserved defeat, he pushes himself out of the uncomfortable position he’d been sleeping in to get something to drink.

Phil’s already awake, a hot cup of what might be coffee in between his hands as he watches the snow falling outside. Tubbo yawns a _good morning_ and fills a glass with water.

“You sleep alright?” Phil asks and Tubbo nods, sitting across him. Phil takes a sip and the smell of ground coffee beans finally hits Tubbo in the small room. _Ah_ , he thinks as he copies Phil, raising his own glass to his lips. 

“Sorry about last night, by the way, I think I was just really, really tired…” Tubbo says once his throat feels up to talking. He hopes to hide his contrite expression behind his glass, but from the way Phil looks at him, he guesses he’s doing a pretty shit job at it – not that he can bring himself to care enough to do much about it. 

His stomach hurts, his eyelids stick together every time he blinks, and he can’t stop thinking if this is how he’s made Tommy feel. He had, after all, just tossed him out by himself. Into the middle of nowhere. With no one to help him.

He averts his gaze out the window, before he can fall further into his thoughts. The last thing he wants is to have another depressive spiral while Phil is _right_ there.

“Yeah, you nearly fell into the fire a couple of time,” comments Phil absent-mindedly. Tubbo hums noncommittedly and, before he can think about it, blurts out;

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Phil sputters into his cup, coffee spilling out of his mouth in his shock. Tubbo blows a breath through his nose and it possibly, _maybe_ could be called a snort. Either way, he covers it with a hand and averts his gaze politely. He pretends that he’s not smiling – Well, he doesn’t have to pretend, because he’s not – He’s not. Definitely not.

When an hour passes and the sun has begun to creep up, the wind outside has weakened to a gentle breeze, sweeping away some of the snow caught in the air. Their cups are empty, the kitchen silent. Phil’s eyes are closed, head propped up on a fist and Tubbo watches as the pink sky breaks for the rising sun, feeling incredibly drowsy in the cool morning.

He entertains the idea of going out for a bit of mountain hiking, curious to see what the area is like, as he rinses out his cup. Then, he hears it and all plans are forgotten. Buzzing. He gasps and leans forward, the sink edge digging into his stomach goes unnoticed as he pushes the window shutters open to catch sight of black and yellow.

“You _are_ making a bee farm!” Tubbo says and turns to see Phil’s cracked open an eye. He’s grinning. 

“C’mon, I’ll give you a tour,” he says and stands with a yawn, wings shaking out any last remnants of sleep that might be left in them. He stretches, untangles his earring from his hair, and waits expectantly. Tubbo wastes no time in pulling on his coat and buttoning it up. 

It’s a little jarring to see what looks to be a honey factory next to the humble, wooden house, but Tubbo catches a glimpse of a passing bee and the contrast immediately slips from his mind as he watches it fly by.

“Where’d you even _find_ bees in a place like this?” he asks as Phil pulls open the chest to check its contents. He hands over a bottle of honey and stands back up to check on the farm itself.

“Didn’t find them here – we’d need to be _crazy_ -lucky to find one here,” Phil says. “We found ‘em further out, while we were looking for the turtles.”

“Ah.”

They stay outside a little longer, Tubbo pointing out some tips and improvements to be made on the redstone contraption, until Phil happens to look up and they realise just how long they’ve stayed out. He suggests that he should probably check up on Techno, mumbling something along the lines of it almost being lunchtime. Tubbo, feeling rather burdensome, volunteers to get lunch ready.

It’s only when he’s standing in the kitchen, the cabinets open, that he realises he has no clue what he’s doing.

“Okay, should be easy enough,” he murmurs as he cracks a couple of eggs into a bowl. He whisks them, stares at the yellow of it, and does nothing more. He stares at it like it’s the most intricate puzzle he’s ever laid eyes on.

Should he make egg sandwiches? An omelette? Where’s he meant to go from here? Maybe adding some carrots and spring onions would do good. Tubbo wrinkles his nose. He’s not a huge fan of spring onions, though…

“You doing alright, mate?”

“Mm – no,” admits Tubbo disappointedly. He pokes the mixed eggs a couple of times with his fork. They, disappointingly enough, do not turn into a gourmet-worthy meal. He glares and jabs them a couple of more times in response.

Phil peers over his shoulder curiously, a cup of water in his hand, and Tubbo stops bludgeoning the eggs. He hums in thought and Tubbo sighs, defeated. 

“I think I’ll just go for sandwiches,” he says.

Phil leans back and shrugs.

“Do what you feel comfortable doing,” he says and without another word, climbs up the ladder to Techno’s room. Tubbo pouts and fetches the cutting board. He places it on the counter, a knife in hand. Okay, great, a cutting board. And a _knife._

This can only end well.

*

Phil comes down when Tubbo’s finished cooking and he picks up Techno’s plate to bring to his room. Tubbo ducks his head, and admits to feeling a little guilty that the owner of the house can’t even move about normally. However, Phil only rolls his eyes, says that Techno is basically (temporarily) bedridden anyway, and pats his head a couple of times before disappearing further into the house.

*

When evening rolls around, with hours full of redstone rearrangements and planting flowers, Tubbo’s suddenly called back inside by Phil. The chairs by the fireplace are gone, as is the table, but Phil takes him past the dying embers, towards the back of the room, where only a couple of bookshelves stand. 

The wood is old, but Tubbo suspects that the books it holds might be older. Spines torn, or even hand-mended. Some miss covers entirely.

Phil scours them for a good while, until he finds what he’s looking for and pulls out a book, stuffed thick with papers and photographs.

“I caught you looking at the portrait on the mantle,” he says as way of explanation as he flips through the pages.

Tubbo catches glimpses of a few black-and-white photos of a young boy with wings, but they’re few and far between, sandwiched in between the colourful pictures of more familiar faces: Wilbur on a tire swing, Techno pushing him from behind; Techno beaming, dressed in an outfit of white with a sword in one hand and a trophy in the other; Tommy scowling at a guffawing Wilbur as he’s thrown over his shoulder. A hazy picture with only a mess of blonde hair and a single eye peeking out at him.

Then, Phil plucks one from the pages and offers it to Tubbo with a gentle smile.

“I think you need this more than me,” he says and Tubbo takes it with trembling hands. 

In the photo, staring back up at him with matching grins, are both Tommy and Tubbo, back when they were – what, ten? Eleven? God, he doesn’t know, it feels so long ago. He does know that it’s after they’d gone off hunting for frogs, with Tubbo carried on a piggyback and Tommy flashing twin peace signs, stood before the old wooden house Phil had lived in.

He gives a small laugh, wobbly and horribly wet. His vision’s growing blurry and it only worsens each time he wipes his eyes until he can’t make out anything at all. His grip on the photo tightens as he bows his head over it, tears dripping and running down the face of it. 

_Thank you_ , he wants to say. He wants to say it a million times, a hundred-million times, until his voice breaks and he can’t say it anymore. However, he can’t muster anything other than a croaked, _“Thanks”_ as his shoulders tremble.

Phil says nothing, but brings him close, embracing him with not only his arms, but his wings too. It reminds Tubbo of home, and the thought only makes him bawl harder. 

Only when he’s calmed down enough, only then, does Phil pull away, telling him that he needs to start on dinner.

That night, Tubbo sleeps with the photo tucked underneath his pillow and hopes to see the green lands of l’Manberg in his dreams. 

*

Dawn breaks with the crisp chirping of the birds outside and with it, Tubbo wakes. The first thing he does is roll onto his stomach and groan into his pillow, arms thrown over the back of his head as he shuts his eyes against the light.

Then, when it’s clear that his body is telling him _no, no more sleep for you_ , he rolls back around to check that the compass is still on his wrist. It’s only when he’s confirmed that it is, that he actually gets up to start his morning routine.

He’s a little surprised to see the kitchen empty and breakfast feels like it drags on much longer than it should, considering he’s only eating a bowl of porridge. He checks on the bees, checks if his redstone inputs are working, and when he affirms that they are, gets onto washing up – no time to waste.

He’s towelling off his hair as he pulls out his communicator, relishing in the soothe of the warmth still clinging to him from the shower.

Like every day, the bright red icon beside his messages blink at him, but they don’t fill him with disappointment or upset anymore. Like every day, he types out a short, _Hey big man, hope you doing ok_ and like every day, it gets sent out and stopped before it can reach the device.

However, there is _one_ thing that stands out to him almost immediately on the small screen of the communicator. _One_ thing that has his heart racing in his chest and him rushing down the stairs.

The weather, almost as though sensing his thoughts, has settled down significantly; not even a snowflake drifts down in the still air. Tubbo packs his small backpack, fetching an apple from the fruit bowl and refilling his flask, before he searches for Phil.

He finds him, not too long after, closing the door to Techno’s room and the worry on his face is quickly hidden when he catches Tubbo at the top of the ladder. There’s a tray with a small pile of bloody gauzes as well as a dark bottle in his hands, and he has to turn his body away so that Tubbo doesn’t run smack into it. 

“What’s got you so excited?” Phil asks with a snort, and Tubbo pauses in waving the communicator to point at the screen. Phil’s eyes narrow before they widen and he leans back, surprised.

The little icon next to Dream’s name, for once, is greyed out.

“This might be it,” Tubbo says, pocketing the communicator. “Maybe I can sneak in while he’s out – I mean, I can’t bring Tommy _back_ , obviously, but… This is – this is too… He’s got to be –” He’s startled into silence when Phil fastens his wool cloak around Tubbo’s shoulders.

He’s got a smile on his face, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he puts his hands on Tubbo’s shoulders. In fact, Tubbo thinks he looks as though someone had stabbed him straight through his side. He glances to the tray, with the blackened blood and the dark bottle of iodine.

_Oh_.

“I can’t go with you, mate,” Phil says and he sounds strained, like the words are hard for him to say. His grip doesn’t tighten, but the pinched expression on his face does. Tubbo feels his jaw set in response, determined and hardened with resolve. “But, please, if you find him, bring him here, Tubbo. He’s not safe there – and I’ve left him there for too long already, but…” He looks down at him and Tubbo startled at the desperation he sees in his eyes. “Bring him here, ‘kay?”

“I intend to,” says Tubbo with a nod. Finally, finally, the grimness eases and Phil gives him a grateful smile. Tubbo, feeling rather flustered and more than a little jittery, turns to buttoning up his coat rather than staring at such unrestrained trust. If he’s being honest, it’s a little uncomfortable to see.

He sets off, not longer thereafter, with a wave and his axe. Phil watches him from the door, even when he’s but a small pinprick in the distance, and doesn’t re-enter the house until Tubbo can no longer see him.

The land around the house is snow as far as the eye can see and if not for the compass in his hand, Tubbo’s certain that he would’ve gotten lost ages ago. His hair is still wet from the morning shower and it freezes to his face in the harsh cold of the January mountaintops. _It’s still better than going through the Nether again_ , Tubbo thinks as he brushes frost from his eyes.

He knows that Tommy had found the house once, soon after his exile, but as Tubbo treks through the knee-deep snow, he has no idea how; the only thing that had helped Tubbo find the secluded place were the coordinates Phil had given him and without them, he might have been stuck wandering the snowy planes for weeks.

Maybe even for forever.

A shiver runs down his spine, and he’s not sure if it’s the weather that’s caused it or the thought. He pulls his scarf back up to cover his nose and studies the compass in his hand. There’s really no reason to, it’s been pointing the same way ever since he’d first received it from Ghostbur, but as he traces the letters carved into its side, he finds that he doesn’t really need a reason to look at it.

*

“Hey there,” says Tubbo, crouched by the sandy beaches of the sea. Just beneath its blue surface, he can make out the dark shapes of dolphins as they swim through kelp and seagrass. The second oar is almost finished, the boat and its first oar already bobbing on the calm water. Just in case, however, Tubbo hasn’t neglected to tie it to a nearby fence he’d stuck into the ground.

The dolphins whistle and click as they leap over the surface, but they don’t approach him. Tubbo wades his hand through the seawater, wriggling his fingers. Whereas the icy air of the mountain might leave one with a particularly bad case of hypothermia, the ocean is in optimal conditions for a good frostbite. He yanks his hand out with a wince, blowing on his fingers in hopes of warming them back up.

He hopes, that on the other side of the stretch of vast blue, he can see his friend once more.

“I’ve been terrible,” he admits with a small chuckle as he finishes polishing the crudely-made oar. Its handle is rather disfigured and unproportionate, but it’ll get the job done. 

The boat sways beneath him as he steps on and he smiles to himself at the familiar motion. How long had it been since he’d even been able to get on a boat for purposes unrelated to the war? _Well,_ he muses, _it’s not exactly as though this occasion is any different._

“I wonder if he’ll yell at me,” he continues as he unties the rope. “Or maybe he’ll cry – hah, he’d never live that down.” It’s a lie. Tubbo would probably cry enough for the both of them. He wonders if Tommy will even be there to cry. The smile fades, then slips off completely. He stares down at the oar, and it suddenly feels very far away. “He probably hates me. I mean, it only makes sense, right?”

_I’d hate me too._

The dolphins swim closer to him and the boat shakes at each bump they give. Tubbo snaps out of his thoughts and gives a quiet laugh, “Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

It shouldn’t be too far from here and Phil had said it should be fairly straightforward too. A straight line to the beach on the other side, where Tommy waits. Tubbo’s heart pounds at the mere thought, the excitement inside of him mixing with apprehension. 

The first part of the trip is easy, with the dolphins helping him along, and Tubbo spends most of it exchanging messages with Fundy and Quackity back at l’Manberg. And even though Quackity’s messages mostly consist of complaining about George and Fundy’s consist of Ghostbur of similar sentiment, it looks like things are good back in the nation. Tubbo’s glad that, at the very least, he seems to have done _something_ right.

Soon enough, however, the dolphins depart with a few more whistles, and Tubbo’s left alone to row under the noon sun and the squawk of seagulls. It’s a far way out, with nothing but the ocean along the horizon, but Tubbo knows that he’ll see land eventually, even if it does end up taking days.

“ _Rowin’ a boat, out to se–ea. But there’s nothing out here for me, except (maybe) some lands of gre–en!_ ” The invisible ukulele in his hands is pretty useless, giving no accompaniment, but the waves and the gulls fill the backing vocals pretty well. Even if they are completely out of sync. 

There’s not much Tubbo has to entertain himself with, but as he rows in the middle of nowhere, he finds that, despite the scratchiness of his throat from singing and yelling and laughing, he feels a lot lighter than he has in days.

The sun has just begun to dye the ocean orange, when Tubbo sees the vague silhouette of the island. The fatigue and soreness that had been overwhelming only a minute ago are suddenly gone, replaced with a renewed energy as he quickens his pace.

There are dolphins here too, Tubbo hears their shrill clicks surround him, but they do nothing to assist and only dance around him. Tubbo can’t bring himself to care, too focused on the patch of green beginning to take form as he approaches.

Tommy.

He’s found Tommy.

“Fucking finally,” he says once the boat hits ashore and he scrambles off it in a flurry of clumsy limbs and unbalanced feet. He forgoes the anchoring process entirely in his excitement, and rushes up the sand towards the trees.

The compass on his wrist is no longer cold, thrumming with an energy that rivals Tubbo’s own, and the arrow points firmly along the coast. Even here, peering through trees, Tubbo can just make out the wooden campsite beside the beach.

He can barely think, vision blurring as he struggles to keep himself standing as he runs against the sand. He slips a couple of times and nearly falls flat on his face once, but it’s all a blur to him; nonsense beside the half-assed campsite he sees.

There’s a tent, the white sheet now a dirty grey, and when Tubbo peers inside with hopes of seeing a familiar face and fierce attitude, he’s sorely disappointed at the emptiness inside. 

The first thing he sees is the half-draped, worn rag on the mattress in the floor, stained and dirty. It’s the first thing he sees, because it’s the only thing the tent has to offer, and as he brings it back up on the mattress, his hands come away with the annoying graininess of sand. 

His compass is still pointing to his left, so he tries to swallow down his worry and brushes the tent sheet out of his face.

There’s a few signs and a whole lot of logs placed sporadically along the sealine as Tubbo follows the little, red arrow, and he has to physically look away when he’s managed to read the third sign on his way. They’re too painful and all too familiar to a past he’d hoped to avoid.

“Tommy?” he cautions as he steps into the ring of wood. There’s a home that stands in the back, colourful against the stripped logs, but also so very out of place. The area seems empty, save for a lone mooshroom, paused in its grazing to stare at Tubbo. “Hello?”

He walks into Ghostbur’s house and his stomach sinks at the sight of the lodestone tucked into the corner. A quick glance towards his hand affirms his suspicions.

“Uhm, okay, well –” Tubbo, rather at a loss of what to do other than wait, pulls out his communicator. He tells himself it’s so he can tell Phil that he’s arrived okay. He ends up staring at the little green icon beside Tommy’s name instead. “What the hell…”

_Maybe Tommy’s gone to get supplies, maybe he’s gone to build or mine,_ Tubbo thinks as he pockets the device and exits the ring to walk alongside the sea. _Maybe he’s gone to find a way to escape._ That does seem very Tommy-like.

Surely, Tubbo’s far from the only one who’d thought of taking advantage of Dream’s absence.

He’s a good distance away from the campsite and just debating whether he should check on his boat’s whereabouts, when he hears a loud _crunch!_ from above him.

There’s not a sound after that as Tubbo tilts his head back and stares. The air is still, time has stopped, and all he can see are the green leaves atop the trees. He pushes back his apprehension and, with his hand clutching the compass a little tighter, calls;

“Tommy?”

For a second, there’s nothing, but then, there’s a quiet shuffle from the branches and Tubbo sees a small face peer down at him from behind the tree’s trunk. He’s too far up to discern any features, but Tubbo doesn’t need them to know who it is.

His heart’s racing and there’s a wide grin that threatens to split his face as he waves up at Tommy. He waves, and waves, and calls him a couple of times for good measure. He’d thought maybe Tommy hadn’t seen or had missed Tubbo’s shouts, but that doesn’t seem quite right either. He lowers his hand.

“Tommy?”

Then, to further his confusion, Tommy begins to disappear behind the tree trunk once more. Tubbo rushes forward, shouting up at him to _wait, wait! Just wait a second!_ as he scrambles to get a hold of the tree. He grits his teeth as he pulls himself up and hears Tommy’s footsteps seemingly miles above him as he darts away. He’s rusty – being President doesn’t exactly entail many tree-climbing escapades, after all – and he curses himself when he no longer can hear Tommy’s footsteps.

“Tommy, no – don’t –” he cuts himself off, arms draped over the next branch as he tries to catch his breath. It sure would be a lot easier if his eyes weren’t stinging, if his vision would _work_ , if the world stopped spinning. “Please come back – I’m sorry.”

He tries to steady himself by taking deep breaths, but he’s still gasping for air rather than actually breathing like a normal human being. So, he pushes himself to continue, even as his face grows hot and his eyes well up with frustration.

Tubbo gets to about where Tommy had been, and when he looks around, his annoyance prickles stronger at the blurs of green and brown he sees. Why does he _always_ insist on crying? How is he supposed to catch up like _this_?

He scrubs the tears away and brushes back his hair from where it’s sticking against his forehead and cheeks. It takes a minute for the tears to stop, for Tubbo to reorient himself, but the moment he does, he’s back on his feet and running the leap to the adjacent tree.

He nearly misses the landing, left heel slipping off the branch, and has to fall to his ass in order to prevent himself from falling and breaking an arm – something not exactly ideal in pursuing your weird friend as he climbs through the trees like a bloody discount-Tarzan. 

He sits there for a moment, just catching his breath and keeping an ear out. A second passes, then two, and Tubbo stretches, arms raised above his head to work out the ache in his back from rowing for so long and –

A rustle comes from just below him, and Tubbo nearly goes lightheaded in relief. 

He hastily swings down and finds Tommy, in the midst of making his way down. Tubbo stares, balanced precariously on the edge of the branch. Tommy stares back at him, a deer caught in headlights. But then, in the span of a second, the panic vanishes and is replaced as a myriad of emotions flit across his face – Tubbo can’t name all of them, but he does recognise the one he’s left with.

Oh, he’s seen this face too many times.

It only hurts, because now, it’s aimed at him.

“Are you serious?! What the fuck, man! Go away!” Tommy spits, his face scrunched in a look of seething anger as he scowls. Tubbo feels the return of both the lump in his throat and, _for fuck’s sake_ , the stinging in his eyes. “Just turn the fuck around and _leave_!”

“No, Tommy – I –” but Tubbo’s already been shoved off the tree and he chokes on a scream as he falls and falls and –

_SPLASH!_

“I said get out,” Tommy growls, still in the tree. Tubbo pushes himself back up, ignoring the heaviness of his soaked clothes and the croak in his voice.

“I’m not leaving. I – I wanted to see you – I _missed_ you! I – I thought,” he tries to swallow down the lump. This time, it doesn’t go away and the words catch in his throat. What _had_ he thought?

His mouth shuts firm with a click, but he doesn’t look away from Tommy, even if it feels as though he’s being burned from the inside out with the intensity of Tommy’s glower. Even if it feels like all the strength in his body has been leeched away.

“Oh, oh, _oh_ – So, _now_ you miss me? Just when Dream, who is, by the way, the _only_ friend I have – the only friend I can _trust_ in this fucking hellscape of a place, is conveniently absent?” Tommy snarls and Tubbo feels something twist in his chest at the scoff that escapes Tommy’s lips. “Bull-fucking-shit. You’re just here to mock me or pity me or _whatever_ the fuck it is you wanna do.”

Tubbo feels as though the world has suddenly split open at the seams, endless beneath his feet.

“I – no! I came here to see you! Why would I… Why would I ever _mock_ you?” God, he can’t get a single thought out, his head’s spinning – Actually, it seems like the whole place is spinning. He opens and closes his mouth a couple more times to try and formulate a sentence, his throat clicks. He licks his lips, opens his mouth; another click. Tries again and finally manages a weak, “I wanted to see you.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.

He barely catches the flicker of glinting light in Tommy’s hand as he opens his mouth again with a step forward, when he’s suddenly knocked back into the water. Tommy’s all he can see, looming over him, and his words choke off with the sharp, cold bite of iron against his throat.

Tommy looks downright murderous.

“Get the fuck away from me.”

Tubbo’s entire being might as well have crumpled right then and there. As it is, he can’t do anything except stare and heave out an exhale. The sword against his throat is steady and not once does Tubbo see a hint of hesitance cross his friend’s face.

It’s all too much, so much, that his brain completely whites out, and he can’t move.

Tommy’s shouting something at him again, scowl darkening to a degree Tubbo didn’t know it could. Tommy moves, gesturing with the hand that isn’t holding the sword, before suddenly pressing forward with one sharply fluid movement. Distantly, Tubbo feels a mild prick against the skin of his throat. 

He doesn’t want to leave, but what can he say? He doesn’t want Tommy stuck here, but does that mean he would have to fight? Fight his best friend?

He wants Tommy to _stop looking at him_ _like that._

“Stop.” The word barely registers and his knees shake. Still, with all the strength he can muster, he brings himself to his feet. He stays standing. Even if he can’t find the strength to hold his head up. The sand sways beneath his feet, but there isn’t a breeze to be felt. “Stop. Stop it, _please_ – I – I – just _stop_.”

He puts his head in his hands and wishes it could hide him away from all the eyes of the world – All the eyes, because that would mean he’d be hidden from Tommy’s. 

_It’s too much. It’s too much it’s too much it’s too much it’s all too much –_

“Stop looking at me, stop yelling, stop it, just stop it.” He breathes in deeply and holds it. He holds it for longer than he needs to, but the trembling in his chest hasn’t stopped and he fears that if he lets it go now, he won’t be able to hold himself together. 

It’s so quiet and dark, if Tubbo focused, he could pretend that he was nowhere – could pretend that this was all just a bad dream and he’d wake up in bed with Wilbur rushing down the hall, . He lets out his breath and though it comes out shaky, his eyes are dry.

His arms fall back to his sides and they feel so, so heavy. He doesn’t look up. The ocean laps at his feet, dragging back sand and shells. Tommy is silent and Tubbo doesn’t realise until a long moment later that the sword is back at his side.

“I’m really, really sorry –”

“Don’t start this again,” Tommy interjects and he sounds just as tired. Tubbo bites his tongue and clenches his fists.

The feet in front of him move, turning away and the static of Tubbo’s mind suddenly rises with a cacophony of panic. Before he can think twice, he reaches forward and his hand closes around the dark fabric of Wilbur’s sleeve.

…What?

Wilbur’s?

“Let go. Right now.” Tommy’s sword flashes dangerously in the sunlight as he raises it in warning. Tubbo clenches his teeth.

“Phil’s worried about you too,” he blurts out and he feels Tommy tense up beneath his grip. Now, the sword trembles.

“So what?”

“He… He asked me to bring you back – back home,” Tubbo manages and finally finds the strength to look up.

Tommy’s eyes are wide, but the glare is still etched into his brow and mouth. Tubbo sets his jaw and glares back.

“And I am _not_ going _anywhere_.”

There’s a beat, maybe two, and Tubbo doesn’t dare look away. Even when the initial surprise on Tommy’s face melts away to that dark glower full of nothing but pure spite; even when the sword in his hand stops rattling; even when Tubbo himself feels like he’s about to throw up.

He meant what he said and he knows Tommy knows it too. He lets go of the sleeve and when the other doesn’t immediately leave, shifts his weight nervously.

He hates this. Where does he go from here?

_Tommy was always the braver one – sparking conflict here and there like a flint if it meant standing up for what’s right._

“You’re full of nothing but shit,” snaps Tommy and without another word, without another glance, leaves.

Tubbo stands on the beach, alone, and stares after his retreating form. He feels hollow, like someone had taken an ice-cream scooper and scooped out everything they could find inside him. At the same time, however, he feels like he’s been shoved and held beneath the surface of ice-cold water, the only warmth coming from the drumming blaze pulsating within his core.

Despite his nerves and… _whatever_ mess is swirling about in him, Tubbo finds himself looking up as he watches Tommy disappear. He finds that he can walk steadily, fuelled by one thought and one thought only:

He was going to prove how damn _stupid_ Tommy was being.

*

“What the fuck, get out!”

“There are _no_ sheep on this island – believe me, I _checked_. _Twice_ – and I have reason to believe that it was probably because you killed them all.”

“Yeah, yeah? Well, maybe there would still be sheep if you hadn’t fucking exiled me in the first place, Tubbo, huh!”

“I had no choice! You weren’t listening to me! You’re _still_ not listening to me!”

“WHAT THE FUCK! YOU DON’T JUST FUCKING EXILE YOUR FRIENDS!”

“WELL, YOU WEREN’T MAKING IT ANY EASIER FOR ME _NOT_ TO!”

Tubbo returns Tommy’s look full-force with the bags of wool still in his arms. He just wants to sleep, he just wants to turn in for the night and deal with everything else in the morning. Tommy’s mouth stays shut, pursed to the point that his lips turn white.

When he’s certain that Tommy’s done arguing with him, he mumbles a half-hearted apology and leaves. His tongue feels like toxic lead in his mouth for the rest of the day.

That night, as he lays down atop the mattress of his bed and stares at the hundreds of millions of stars blinking down at him, he stretches an arm out and waves his hand to brush against the tiny dots. He’s not sure what to do and Phil hadn’t had any better advice, aside from the one _give him time, he’ll come around._

But this is Tommy, so Tubbo honestly doubts he will.

He sighs and rolls on his side.

He wishes he could disappear, he wishes he could turn back time, he wishes Tommy would just _listen_ to him for once. He wishes it weren’t all so fucked.

His eyes and nose sting. It’s too goddamn cold.

When Tubbo closes his eyes, he only sees Tommy’s face; the angry curl to his lips, the clench of his jaw and teeth, the furious glint in his grey eyes. Tubbo bites back a noise in the back of his throat, and throws an arm over his eyes to block out the world. Had his eyes always been so grey?

*

There’s millions of things Tubbo wants to say to Tommy, more things he wants to tell him than there are stars in the sky. Of course, the only problem with that is that Tommy refuses to listen to a single thing. That’s fine, Tubbo supposes, it’s not like he can find the words to voice his thoughts to him anyway.

He busies himself that day with wandering between wanting to be near Tommy and wanting to be nowhere near him. He spends the morning searching for his boat and the afternoon rowing it back in and, this time, safely tying it to shore.

Then, he spends the rest of the evening searching for Tommy instead.

He’d gotten a couple of fish on his way back from finding the boat, and had been hoping to offer up a few as a sort of peace offering. Well, sort of. 

Tubbo wasn’t blind, he noticed how thin Tommy’d gotten, how he’d stare blankly down at the food cooked over the fire and watch as it crumbled into ash. Maybe, hopefully, all he needed was a little coaxing. (This was also a half-truth, seeing as how plans are overrated with Tommy, demanding him to eat until he finally did was a much more effective method. Stubbornness and persistence are key).

It doesn’t take long to find him and Tubbo nearly announces his presence, when he hears Tommy’s hushed voice. Panic sends him immediately darting behind a tree to hide, listening and waiting for a second voice. A voice that had screamed at them from enemy lines and spoken in sweetened honey when it was over. But when the second voice never comes and the muttering turns to humming, Tubbo’s fear slowly turns to curiosity.

It’s awfully familiar, but Tubbo doesn’t recognise it until Tommy starts muttering the words, the melody half-assed and half-formed as he cuts down wood.

“ _Sometimes you wanna to go! Where everybody knows your na–ame – Bam bam ba-bam! – And they’re always glad you ca–ame – Bam bam ba-bam!_ ” Tommy drums the sticks in his hands against a nearby tree, careless to the world. “ _Wouldn’t it be nice to get away? Where everybody…_ ”

The singing trails away and Tubbo fears that for a second, he’s been caught, but then the humming resumes and he relaxes against the tree again. It’s strange and weirdly comforting to hear the spark in Tommy’s voice, even if the mere fact of Tubbo being alive may snuff it each time.

Tubbo decides that it’s good enough for him if Tommy’s at least a little happy.

*

“What’re you doing?”

“Fishing.”

“That… I…”

Tubbo peers up from where he’s sat on a rock by the coastline, rod cast far out at sea and boat bobbing leisurely beside the line. If it weren’t for the circumstances, Tubbo might have been able to pretend that he were visiting a friend on vacation.

Tommy’s brows are furrowed, frown on his face, but for once, it’s not one of anger or even hurt; instead, he really just looks incredibly perplexed. Tubbo glances at the rod in his hand, follows the line, studies the red-and-white float on the water, and comes up with absolutely nothing to warrant the expression.

“What?” he asks and Tommy’s look of confusion shifts to incredulity.

“You’re using bait.”

“Yes.”

“ _My_ bait.”

Miffed, Tubbo huffs through his nose and rolls his eyes. Beside him is a small box, and when he hoists it onto his lap and opens it, he can’t help but feel a little hurt at the surprise that fills Tommy’s face.

“Seriously?” he asks and he’s really not sure what he’s hoping to hear. The answer is crystal clear, painfully so, in front of him. Tommy glances up, brow cocked in a silent question, and Tubbo, half-torn between ignoring him to be petty and to indulge in the urge for normalcy, begins to lean forward, begins to formulate a way to drag up their old ways of conversation, words on the tip of his tongue.

The openness of Tommy’s face closes off and stays closed off as he walks away.

Tubbo bites the inside of his cheek and turns back to his fishing. Nothing bites for the rest of the day.

*

“Phil, what do I do – he won’t listen to me,” Tubbo whispers beneath the gaze of the night sky. The communicator in his hands won’t stop shaking in the cold air, but Tubbo can’t feel it past the numbness of his fingers. “I’m really, really trying, but I – I really messed up, Phil. I think… Ugh, I don’t _know_ …”

“ _You’re doing fine, Tubbo, just give him some time. Tommy can get like that sometimes,_ ” Phil laughs a little on the other side of the phone and the sound twists something horrid in the depths of his chest. “ _He’s stubborn, stupidly so sometimes, but he’ll come around._ ”

Tubbo gives a noncommittal hum, and shifts uneasily on his bed. He shivers when the covers slip off of his shoulders and pulls them up with a hiss. Phil must hear, because he immediately asks if he’s hurt.

“Ah… ha, no, I’m fine,” says Tubbo with a sheepish smile. Most of his clothes hang on the low branches of the tree behind him and dressed in nothing but light clothes, his voice shakes slightly. “It’s just cold, I’m sure you know how that is.”

Phil gives another laugh and this time, it does warm Tubbo up a little as he draws his knees to his chest.

“How’s, um, how’s Techno?” Tubbo asks in the eve of silence and there’s a quiet noise from the other end, before Phil sighs.

“ _Not too great at the moment, even if he keeps insisting that he’s fine. Caught him early in the morning the other day in the farm with four of his wounds reopened and muttering something about old habits._ ”

Tubbo, for all the fear that writhes within him at the thought of the man, can’t help but giggle, because, yeah, that _does_ seem like something Techno would do. He supposes that in that regard, he isn’t as different from his brothers as Tommy would like to believe.

“Why don’t you just lock his door?” Tubbo suggests without a second thought. It’s a huge mistake, he can feel it in the tense silence that immediately follows, and he quickly adds, as though it explained everything; “I mean, Wilbur used to do it with me and Tommy when we would… um, get too excited at night.” Then, just to seal the deal, “It worked out in the end.”

Tubbo forces his mouth shut, before he can spew out some more incriminating things that’ll make Phil hate him, and debates whether he can rattle out an excuse to end the call. God, why’d he say that?

“ _No, I – Wil did_ what _?_ ” Phil’s voice is strained with horror, hushed, and Tubbo gulps. “ _He locked you in?_ ”

“Well, I mean, I get it! We can get a little rowdy sometimes, and there was a lot going on, so…” Tubbo trails off, licking his lips, and losing his reasoning. If there even was one in the first place.

“ _So… what?_ ” Phil whispers.

“Never mind, sorry,” says Tubbo and in a burst of impulsivity, hangs up. 

He sits there, staring down at the flickering numbers on the communicator screen for what feels like hours. He’d just hung up on Phil, right after he’d stomped over the grave of his dead son for – for… for _what_?

“Sorry,” Tubbo says to the wind, because it seems to be the only damn thing he can say. “I’m sorry.”

*

The days are tough, spent walking down a string. Except the string is suspended in the middle of the sky and is made from a web of lies. Oh, also, just to make sure that he absolutely, under no circumstances, is allowed to fall, the floor is lava _and_ covered in spikes (why pick one when you can have both, right?). So, yeah, not that great and certainly not what Tubbo had been hoping for. 

Tommy switches back and forth like a goddamn ping-pong game on steroids; raging and foaming at the mouth one second, cold and stand-offish the next. But if there was one thing that was consistent, it was that he always, always, without fail, managed to slip away just when Tubbo thought he was making progress.

When he’d crack a joke (usually, just for his own sanity) and he’d catch the start of a snort, before it was mercilessly stomped out; when something would go wrong or he’d get hurt and he’d see Tommy staring down at him, eyebrow twitching and face unreadable.

With all the days that passed, each hour just hammering home the point that Tubbo had royally fucked up – and yes, he _knows_ that he’s fucked up, but simply acknowledging it never helped _anyone_ before, so it’s certainly not going to start working miracles anytime soon. Especially, not for someone like him. But at least with all of that, he had the relief of sleep.

He had nights of just staring up at the sky, be it starry or cloudy or raining cats and dogs straight into his eyes. Could have just a _few_ hours away from the harsh reality of the daytime.

Until he couldn’t anymore.

And don’t get him wrong, it’s certainly not easy for him to sleep on a regular day, and he knows it’s not the bed or the outdoors or the forest noises. No, he knows it isn’t, because even back in the comfort of the massive emptiness of his home back in l’Manberg, his bed remained much too cold with a bizarre harshness he’s certain hadn’t been there at all before. 

But this is a whole new brand of torture that Tubbo would have been better off not experiencing.

His eyes are dry, his mind is static, and the gentle beating in his chest feels as though it might just dissolve away at a second’s moment. Each night passes, and as each hour ticks by, he grows more and more restless.

This night is different. He doesn’t know why, but there’s something that has the hair on the back of his neck standing on end and his inability to sleep doesn’t seem to be completely baseless. Trying to think on it, however, is just tiring, so he simply doesn’t.

When his skin starts itching and the tossing and turning becomes irritating, he gets out of bed. Despite being left in nothing but his undershirt and a pair of shorts, despite his bare feet against the dry earth, despite his hair still being wet from washing up that evening, he feels nothing as he wanders across the island.

The compass on his wrist glows a dim purple in the darkness, and he lets it guide him back to the beach. With nothing but the stars and the moon, it’s hard to discern where the sky ends and where the ocean begins.

Tubbo seats himself on his rock (and it’s familiar, like he’s known it his entire life – how stupidly messed up is that?), and stares out the vastness of it all. The only noise out here comes from the endless waves and the longer Tubbo sits on the beach, the quieter the buzzing in his head becomes, until there’s nothing left at all.

He thinks he might be slipping off to sleep, it’s so dark, but then, he sees something move, obscuring a patch of stars reflected for a second and he snaps awake. _What the hell?_ he thinks as he squints, trying his damnedest to figure out what he’s looking at.

He doesn’t know anyone else planning to arrive at the island, let alone at _this_ hour. Who in their right mind would –

Tubbo’s heart stops as realisation freezes his body, much more painfully than the blizzard atop the mountain ever could, and it’s with a semi-lucidness that he scrambles off the rock in a blind panic with the sole intent to find Tommy; to wake his best friend, before Dream can – before Dream –

_Wait._

Tubbo pauses; something isn’t right.

The figure in the water continues to walk, but it’s not _towards_ them, not towards them at all. No, they’re moving _away_ with unsteady lurches forward. He doesn’t think, doesn’t let himself think, as he throws himself, head-first, into the waves. The ocean around him is calm and it’s a harsh contrast to his franticly-beating heart.

“Hey! Hey! Stop!” he shouts as he swims. He thinks he might swallow some seawater (and possibly breathed it, judging from the growing ache in his chest) as he screams and kicks. His hand is outstretched, fingers splayed, and the figure before him suddenly comes to a halt when they brush against wet fabric.

He grabs their arm and pulls them back, coughing and gagging when his lungs begin to burn. When he opens his eyes, however, all of that is instantly pushed to the back of his mind.

The moon’s light has fallen across them, illuminating half of Tommy’s face and leaving the rest bathed in shadows. His hair is damp, long strands clumped together and stuck to his skin; the black water obscures his lip and drips off the tip of his nose. His eyes appear completely grey in the ghostly light, distant and unseeing. He looks… He looks…

He looks like a drowned corpse.

“Tommy? Tommy! _TOMMY_!” Tubbo shakes his shoulders helplessly, he doesn’t care if he accidentally pulls something from the awkward angle at which he’s both holding Tommy afloat and kicking himself to the surface. He doesn’t care, because his friend isn’t responding and there’s water dribbling down his chin and _oh God, oh God, he’s_ dead _._ He’s _dead_. “WAKE UP! TOMMY!”

When screaming his lungs out and violent shakes don’t work, Tubbo resorts to the only thing he can think to do. He slaps Tommy across the face. 

Again and again and again and –

“H –” Tommy chokes and Tubbo nearly drops him as relief crashes through him, dragging a painful sob from deep within his chest. Tommy turns his head away to sputter and heaves the water out of his lungs. Tubbo thumps his back, albeit weakly, a good amount of times as he gasps for breath. “What the fuck,” he rasps.

“I – I – What were you _doing_?!” shrieks Tubbo and Tommy flinches. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and only slightly regrets it when it causes pain to burst beneath closed lids. Everything is so cold and with the ocean’s waves crashing against them, Tubbo can’t tell if the saltiness he tastes is from the seawater or from his eyes.

“T-Tubbo, what – I didn’t – What the fuck.” Tommy’s voice sounds sore, barely above a whisper as he draws Tubbo close to him and brings them back to shore. Tubbo’s wailing is loud, but over it all, he can still hear the rapid _thump-thump-thump_ of Tommy’s heart as he struggles to breathe.

Tommy doesn’t let go of Tubbo, even where they’re on the beach, even when Tubbo’s keening turns to muffled sniffles. Even when, for everything Tubbo’s done, there should be no reason for him to keep holding on.

Tubbo stares out at the starry ocean for a long time after he’s calmed down, limp against Tommy. He feels heavy and sore and sticky. At least he doesn’t feel cold, he supposes.

“Sleepwalking,” pipes up Tommy all of a sudden, startling Tubbo. He winces, but doesn’t apologise as he continues on; “I keep waking up in the sea. I – I thought it was weird, but I guess I never expected… I just never really thought about it much, I guess.”

“Oh,” says Tubbo.

“Yeah.”

They fall into silence again. Tubbo closes his eyes, the rhythm of both Tommy’s heartbeat and the waves against the shore lulling him into kind promises of sleep and relief. He’s just about to nod off, when Tommy suddenly shifts and the warmth drains out of his body in an instant.

His head snaps up, but Tommy’s still looking at him, uncertainty in his frown and it’s only then that Tubbo sleepily realises that the curve in his spine is absent. Strange.

“Where are you going?” he asks quietly, watching as Tommy peels off Wilbur’s coat with a grimace and it falls to the ground with a wet _plop_.With a yawn, he gets to his feet and blinks the dizziness out of his head. 

“Wait here a sec,” Tommy says and then disappears into his tent. Tubbo obliges, too tired to do much else, and after a particularly cold breeze seeps through his clothes and hits bone, draws Wilbur’s soaked coat around himself. He can’t tell if it makes a difference in the slightest.

Tommy isn’t gone for a long while, which is, admittedly, a little surprising. Tubbo wouldn’t have blamed him at all if he just fell straight to sleep on his bed. But then he sees what’s in his hands, and he gives a breathy huff of laughter.

A jukebox.

“I – It’s not the _exact_ same as back in… in l’Manberg, but…” Tommy trails off as he places the jukebox into the sand and loads the disc. The tune is unfamiliar to Tubbo, but it seems to relax Tommy as he leans back in the sand.

“It’s… nice,” says Tubbo, folding his arms over his knees. Tommy hums in response, but doesn’t speak. 

When Tubbo looks over, his eyes are closed and he’s smiling. _Oh,_ thinks Tubbo as he turns back, leaning his cheek against his arm and following his friend in shutting his eyes. If he pretends, very, very hard, he can almost see the rolling hills and buttercup flowers of l’Manberg. Can almost pretend that he’s not on the beach and is, instead, on the bench.

At least, he doesn’t have to pretend that Tommy is there. And honestly, that’s the only thing that matters to Tubbo.

*

Tubbo wakes with a mouthful of sand, stinging eyes, and no sight of Tommy. He almost thinks last night was just a dream and he’d somehow fallen asleep on the beach, but then he looks up and sees the jukebox. The disc is still playing.

Tubbo lays on the sand for a little longer.

“…Wanna talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

Tubbo shoots Tommy an unimpressed look from where he’s spearing fish onto sticks to be laid around the fire. 

Tommy had insisted that he help him get protein, because, apparently, the fish had _horrible_ life decision-making skills and refused to be fished out by Tommy. When Tubbo had said it was because Tommy was too impatient and kept reeling his line in early, he’d gotten a flippant eye roll and a whole lot of name-calling.

In exchange, he got to hang out with _“the one and only, the Biggest T”_. Which, no joke, is a great trade in Tubbo’s opinion.

Right now, however, Tommy’s gone back to being stubborn and in the annoying way.

“Uhh, what happened last night?” Tubbo answers, glancing up at Tommy before stabbing the soil with another fish-on-a-stick. Or maybe stick-through-a-fish would be more accurate? “Like, the sleep-walking thing?”

“…The what?” Tommy asks, brows furrowed as he stares straight at Tubbo, arms crossed. He’s sitting on one of the log benches, slacking off. Because of course he is. Tubbo rolls his eyes as he grabs the next fish from the pile.

“You know, you almost drowning?” A confused look. “The disc?” Tommy narrows his eyes, frown turning lopsided as he thinks. Tubbo’s jaw goes slack. “Are you _kidding_? We – we fell asleep on the beach! _You were there_!”

“Hm,” says Tommy as he rubs his chin. He shakes his head and genuinely looks lost. “Are you doing okay, man? Maybe _The Wilderness_ isn’t for you.” Tubbo stares. Is he… Is he being serious?

“Are you serious?”

“Tubbo, you worry me sometimes.”

“ _What the hell!_ ”

All in all, it’s a pretty good day.

Tommy wanders underground to do some mining – apparently, you can _never_ have too much cobblestone – and Tubbo stays on land to collect more food. Which mostly consists of fish, but he does find a few apple trees, which is nice. He suspects, judging from the blue handprints smeared on some of the bark, that they’re not completely natural.

It’s still like walking barefoot on eggshells whenever he’s around Tommy, except now he’s finally gotten some shoes and pulled them on. Hopefully, someday (and someday soon), the eggshells will be gone and they can finally talk like normal friends and not like awkward cousins who haven’t seen each other for over a decade and are suddenly brought together by a forced family gathering.

_Ugh_.

He really hopes things go back to normal and soon.

Tommy turns up that evening, dirt and grime covering every inch of him, but he’s beaming, showing off his very impressive and not at all questionable supply of cobblestone. There is some iron and coal mixed in, however, so it’s not a complete lost cause and Tubbo wastes no time in smelting the ore.

He also wastes no time in all but shoving Tommy into the ocean to clean off.

“Yo, what the fuck, man! Do you _want_ me to drown?”

“I want you to not smell like an entire mineshaft, thank you very much.”

“What do you mean? I smell like absolute, pure _masculinity_ – you’re just jealous, bitch.”

“Yeah, _“absolute, pure masculinity”_. I’m so jealous, I’m turning green with envy.”

“Stop being a sarcastic bitch, bitch.”

“Maybe when _you_ stop being a bitch and _wash up_.”

Tommy grumbles sourly, but when he shows up later as the sun’s setting and Tubbo nibbles on the tail of a mackerel, there’s not a spot of dirt on him. His hair, however, does keep getting into his eyes and Tommy makes sure that Tubbo knows every time it annoys him. Every. Single. Time.

“Why don’t you just cut it?” he asks when Tommy bats it away for the umpteenth time. He gets a look that suggests he’s the dumbest person to have ever walked the planet. He gets his answer when he raises a brow, unfazed.

“You think I have _shears_?” Tommy asks. Tubbo looks to the furnace, then the chest, and finally, to the iron chest plate lying by his friend’s side. 

“Uh, yes?”

“Oh my God – You are so stupid sometimes, Tubbo.”

“I – What?”

Tommy doesn’t elaborate further than that, but it’s not like Tubbo’s asking him to. He’s only said one sentence and it’s already succeeded in making Tubbo’s head spin. Imagine what _two_ sentences could do. Tubbo shudders at the mere thought.

*

The stars are especially bright that night, but Tubbo suspects that has to do with the fact that he’s not looking at them from beneath the trees. 

He’d gone to bed, carried out his nightly ritual of tossing and turning until he got annoyed and antsy, and had decided to sit at the beach again. Tommy’s tent flap is closed shut, but he can’t hear any tell-tale sounds of sleep. Which is expected, considering that Tommy, despite being incredibly loud, does not snore.

He drifts along the ocean surface, staring up and spinning himself in a very, very slow circle. The motion makes him sleepy, but the cold air bites each time he threatens to slip off.

It’s so very, very quiet that Tubbo can even hear his own heartbeat – a steady pulse in his chest. He closes his eyes and lets himself float around in the sky. He could never do this in l’Manberg, what with there being no time and no sea right at his doorstep, but especially now, when he’s _President_?

Certainly not.

He hears the rustle of cloth from behind his head and light filters out, momentarily breaking the illusion of swimming among the stars. But then it folds back down and Tubbo is left in darkness once more, except this time, there’s soft footfalls against the sand as Tommy stands on the beach.

“Tubbo?”

“Mm-hm?”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m an astronaut, Tommy,” says Tubbo with a silly grin. Tommy snorts with a quiet, _“Oh, okay”_ as he stands on the beach. They chat idly as Tommy works through a few stretches, before he dives into the water. Tubbo’s pushed out a little when he swims past – a dark blur.

He doesn’t ask as he lays there, in the sky and in the ocean. He’s already come out on the beach when he’d thought he’d be alone and seen Tommy doing laps at (probably) two in the morning.

Tubbo’s not sure how long he has his eyes closed as he drifts lazily. He listens to the waves, the crickets, and the splashing as Tommy passes by again. He counts the seconds between each breath – _1, 2, 3. breathe, 1, 2, 3, breathe…_ and it doesn’t even register that Tommy’s finished his laps, until he speaks.

“What’cha thinking about, big man?” he asks. Tommy’s lying beside him, arms out by his sides and focused on the sky above. Tubbo follows his gaze and ends up lost in the endless stretch of the stars around him.

He gives a short hum with no clear answer to give back.

“Nothing really,” he admits and Tommy breathes a ghost of a laugh. Tubbo reaches a hand up, just like he had the first night, and reaches for the sky. His fingers connect thousands of tiny stars, but then there’s a second hand beside his as Tommy copies the motion.

The sight brings back memories of sneaking out and meeting at secret hills with the entire galaxy as their little world. Tommy lies beside him and traces out a constellation with his forefinger. 

“Remember when we used to stargaze? You had _no_ idea what I was talking about,” Tommy says and nudges Tubbo’s side with a wide grin. It ends up a little awkward, less force in the water than on the land, but the sentiment comes across and Tubbo smiles.

“I still think you were just bullshitting me.”

Tommy gives an offended gasp and Tubbo shrugs. His brows furrow, determined, and he turns back to the sky, eyes searching and flitting across the stars.

“Okay – Okay, let’s see…” 

Tommy raises his hand again and draws out lines along the sky. Lines that make absolutely no sense. It seems that, even after all these years, it’s still impossible to tell what he’s gesturing at.

“That’s Orion,” says Tommy and Tubbo squints. All he can see are a bunch of twinkling dots. Tommy must notice his confusion, because he repeats tracing the sky and says, “See?”

“Uhh, oh – yeah. Yeah, sure,” says Tubbo with a nod. Tommy glances over at him and snorts.

“No you don’t.”

Tubbo laughs, sheepish.

“Yeah, you’re right – I don’t see it at all.”

Tommy nudges him in the side with his elbow again and says it’s because Tubbo’s not _“1000 IQ enough to”_ , but leaves his hand in the sky, pointing out constellation after constellation. Tubbo does his best to keep up, but in the end, the only one he gets is Lepus and even that one is a hard maybe.

“You remember the weirdest of things,” Tubbo says once Tommy runs out of star patterns to map out. Tommy cackles, but when it suddenly dissolves into a coughing fit and claims of _“fuck – breathing fucking sucks – what the fuck”_ , it causes Tubbo to burst out laughing.

“You’re the worst,” groans Tommy when the coughing subsides. “I hate you.”

“You love me,” says Tubbo easily, before he realises his words and all mirth dies away. He’s about to apologise, about to revoke them, when Tommy laughs and flicks the back of Tubbo’s hand, still reaching up towards the sky.

“What are you doing?” he asks and Tubbo blinks, looking up at where his fingers point to.

“Uhh, looking for Orion?” he lies and points out what he thinks might be the constellation. When Tommy glances up, he grins. 

“What?” he laughs and knocks Tubbo’s hand out of position, losing the stars. Despite his words, however, his hand remains, covering what little of the sky he can. Tubbo chuckles and turns his head with a raised brow.

“What are _you_ doing?”

Tommy’s grin stretches as he stares at his hand and the stars enveloping them in their own little pocket of the world.

“I’m stealing the moon, bitch.”

They return to the beach as the sky begins to brighten and it’s only when Tubbo has to stand and actually support his weight again that he realises just how exhausted he is. From how Tommy stumbles and nearly falls with a clipped yelp, he can only assume that it’s the same for the other.

He’s about to head off to his bed in the woods, stifling a yawn and telling him goodnight, when Tommy gives an indignant squawk. Tubbo turns back to see what the issue is, and amusedly registers that the sight before him is one he’s seen many times before.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, despite knowing exactly what Tommy’s thinking, and stops to see what the other might say. Tommy has his mouth in a deep frown, looking down at his shirt as he wrings the water out of it, busying himself.

“What? No, no, I didn’t say anything. Did I say anything? I don’t think so. You go ahead to bed, whatever,” he says and scoops up Wilbur’s coat. 

Now, Tubbo knows how this is meant to go, knows he’s supposed to feign ignorance, so that Tommy can claim _he_ ’s the weird one or whatever, to steer off-topic, and that’s what Tubbo usually would do. The only thing is while Tommy might have been too stubborn to change over the years, Tubbo had no choice but to.

Besides, he kind of wants to see what might happen.

“Oh, yeah? You look like you want to say something, though. In fact, it _kinda_ looked to me like you wanted me to stay,” Tubbo says and folds his arms behind his back. It’s a habit he’d picked up from hanging around Schlatt for too long, but no matter how much he despises it, he can’t seem to shake it off.

Tommy opens his mouth to retort, but there’s a long pause and he only manages to progressively look more and more appalled.

“What, no! You’re being weird, Tubbo,” he settles on with a small pout. Tubbo’s cheeks are beginning to hurt from holding back a grin, so he lets out a snicker and waves goodbye as he leaves.

“I’ll still be here, Tommy,” he reassures at the crestfallen look he gets. Tommy’s mouth forms a line at that and this time, when he averts his eyes, Tubbo gets the feeling that it’s not for the same reason as before. 

By now, the sun has already begun to rise and as Tommy turns away from the pink and blue sky, Tubbo heaves a sigh and returns to his camp in the forest. He rummages through his belongings, pulls out his communicator and sends a message to Quackity and Fundy.

He’s surprised when, less than a minute later, Fundy answers to tell him that _yes, l’Manberg is still fine_ and to give his daily complaint of Quackity sleeping in. Tubbo smiles and tells him that it’s probably because he spends the nights working on his own growing nation. Fundy reads the message, but doesn’t reply.

When he types out his message for Phil, he feels incredibly bubbly for the first time in, what, years? And his fingers fly across the screen.

_Hey, Phil. Youre riight, I think we’ll be home sooon_

There’s a _ping_ and Phil’s answered with a short,

_duh_

_i’m always right_

_don’t you ever doubt me again :)_

The morning after the star-filled night is awkward and a little tense. 

Predictably, Tommy refuses to acknowledge the last night, just like he had the morning after the night he’d almost drowned. Tubbo would be lying if he said he hadn’t expected it, hadn’t expected Tommy to throw it to the wind to be forgotten. He would also be lying if he said it didn’t hurt, at least a little bit.

Tommy avoids him like the plague, never staying in the same spot for too long, but he also doesn’t run away when Tubbo inevitably stumbles upon him and offers to help. 

_That’s progress_ , Tubbo thinks the next day, when he sees the small chest at the foot of his bed with _Bitch boy’s food_ etched into the sign above it.

There’s some bread, which is unexpected but not unwanted, and a couple of apples. The bread looks like it’ll last a bit longer, so Tubbo opts for an apple instead. It’s a little soft and overripe to the point that Tubbo’s fingers come away sticky when he finishes. 

But it’s a good apple, because Tommy had given it to him.

He wanders out in hopes of finding him and is a little disheartened to feel the first, few cold drops of rain. Tubbo reasons that Tommy will probably be in his tent then – easier for him – and that maybe he can give Tommy some of the steak he’d found the other day in thanks. He’s about to step back onto the beach, when his communicator _pings_ and he pulls it out to see that both Phil _and_ Techno have messaged him.

Tubbo’s stomach sinks and he hesitates to see what might be bad enough to cause _Technoblade_ to contact him. The sweetness of the apple turns sickly in the back of his throat when he finds out why.

The messages are short and simple – straight to the point:

Phil’s reads a vague, _get out of there. now._

Techno’s tells him why – _dream’s back on_

The communicator trembles as Tubbo taps and swipes furiously at the screen, rain drops gathering and distorting the letters past recognition, as he picks up to a run. He has to get to Tommy, he has to find Tommy _now_.

The icon next to Dream’s name is green.

“Tubbo? What –”

“Tommy! We have to get out now, Dream’s –”

The words die on his tongue and he and everything around him come to a screeching halt – or maybe, rather, everything around _Dream_ comes to a screeching halt. The rain hammers down upon them, opening into a heavy torrent and drowns out the silence. The mask tilts, smile mocking as Dream says,

“Oh, hello.”

He’s standing right behind Tommy, who looks absolutely outraged, any trace of their time together from the past few days completely erased, with red-rimmed eyes and a tight-lipped frown. His cheeks are wet and somehow, Tubbo knows that it isn’t from the rain. Dream’s hand falls from his shoulder, still facing Tubbo with the smile that haunts him every time he closes his eyes.

The communicator falls from his hands and clatters onto the ground. The screen turns black upon impact, but it goes unnoticed. Tubbo’s still trying to register what he’s seeing.

“Dream,” he greets and nods his head, doing his best to not portray an ounce of the fear that has his heart hammering against his ribcage. His hands are slippery beside his sides and they tremble as he clasps them. “Wh – I thought you were, uh, gone for a bit?”

Dream tilts his head again, looking away, before nodding with a shrug and turning back to say,

“I guess you could say that, yeah.” He peers down, the forest leaves casting dark shadows across his face, obscuring his gaze. “I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“Oh, well, uh, I thought it was about time I-I saw Tommy, y’know?” Tubbo replies, gesturing vaguely towards Tommy, whose lip curls when Tubbo moves his attention onto him. Tubbo can’t tell if the flow of tears down his cheeks is from him or the rain obscuring his view – either way, they glisten against the torchlight, regardless of origin. Tubbo bites the inside of his cheek. “Did… Did something happen?”

“No, no, nothing happened,” says Dream casually, leaning back on his heels with hands in his pockets. Tubbo’s brows furrow and though he doesn’t believe the man for a second – not anymore, _never again_ – he keeps his mouth shut. “I mean, I guess I’m a _little_ disappointed Tommy didn’t tell me that _the President_ had come to visit,” he continues and pats Tommy’s head. Tubbo doesn’t miss the flinch he gets from the action, but Dream seems completely unaffected as he goes on; “But, I guess he was just busy.”

“In the middle of nowhere,” mutters Tubbo sourly. He refuses to look away from Dream’s mask, no matter how sick the apathetic smile makes him feel, no matter his urge to turn when he hears Tommy shift from beside him and his fingers twitch from his nervousness. He’s refuses to admit that he’s getting lightheaded and disoriented. He’s not. He _can’t_ be.

“Yeah, that’s – that’s what exile _is_ ,” Dream says with a snort. “That’s what you decided, isn’t it? I mean, don’t get me wrong, you made the right choice, but,” a small chuckle, “I thought you knew?”

“I know what exile is,” says Tubbo and anger flares up within him from how blasé Dream is with, well, _everything_. This was the man who’d blown up their nation, had tied thin, red strings to his friends, his _family_ and made them play a messed up game of house. 

How could he act as though Tommy was fine – how _dare_ he act as though Tommy was fine, with his scars, with the holes in his clothes, when his best friend looked like a goddamn _skeleton_ hung up on the porch for Halloween! “I just – I _trusted_ you! I thought you _cared_ , you said you did!”

“Tubbo, _you_ exiled him. _You_ were the one that gave the order to kick him out,” Dream says, still as cool as a fucking cucumber in the middle of winter. “Look around, Tubbo, there’s nothing here. If it weren’t for me, Tommy would be _dead_ by now – Heck, he’d probably have died in the first _week_!”

Dream takes a step forward and points straight at Tubbo.

“Because _you_ exiled him, because _you_ couldn’t look after your own best friend. You _abandoned_ him, Tubbo.”

The silence is deafening. Dream’s words linger in the air and once he’s certain in the thought that he’s won, leans back and returns to Tommy, hand pushing against his back. Tommy glances over at Tubbo, a flicker of something crosses his face before he, too, turns away. 

His hands aren’t shaking anymore.

“No.”

Both Dream and Tommy turn to face him, and despite the mask, that damned mask that haunts his worst nightmares, Tubbo hears the intrigue, clear as day, in Dream’s little, “Oh?”.

“You’re right, I _did_ exile him. I _did_ ask you to escort him out of l’Manberg territory. But I did _not_ ,” he steps forward and for the first time in his life, Tubbo’s vision fills with a red he thinks might be from the glow of torchlight. His hand reaches down to the belt around his waist. “I _did not abandon_ him.”

The axe is both heavy and light in his hand, and in that moment, Tubbo nearly loses himself to the boiling rage festering within him. It sparks his nerves alight, his limbs shaky with restraint, he breathes smoke. It’s so overwhelming and sudden and _intoxicating_ that Tubbo almost lets himself fall beneath it.

Almost.

The head of the axe stops just shy of the skin of Dream’s exposed neck. Tubbo glares furiously at him, feeling as though every inch of him, every cell in his body, every nerve, is ablaze with white-hot contempt, and honestly, it begins to scare Tubbo, just a little.

His hair falls into his eyes, taking away his sight of the top part of Dream’s mask, until all Tubbo can see is that _fucking smile_. His eyes sting, but he’s too focused on struggling to keep his head above the stirring lava to take notice.

“Oh,” says Dream, the grin clear in his voice. “I’m sure you didn’t _mean_ to.”

“No,” says Tubbo through gritted teeth. “I _didn’t_.”

Their staring contest lasts for what Tubbo feels like are hours, but he knows it’s only been a few seconds – a minute a most. He knows, because he’s still brimming with heat and because the axe resting against Dream’s throat is still steady.

When Dream doesn’t seem eager to move anytime soon, Tubbo turns his attention back onto Tommy, who’s been strangely silent throughout the whole thing. He knows this probably looks horrible – the man who’d spun him around with pretences hidden behind a smile and the boy who’d exiled him fighting – but right now, there are _more important_ things at stake.

“Tommy,” Tubbo starts and he sees Tommy move out the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, I messed up. I messed up really bad –”

“Yeah, no shit! You fucked up big time.”

“I know, I know – I’m sorry,” Tubbo grits his teeth, tightens his grip around the handle of his axe and he catches a line of red trickle down the tip of it. Dream’s craned his head up a little, catching the blade and drawing it up tauntingly. Tubbo can just barely make out a sliver of a grin, full of teeth, beneath his mask. “Just – just, _please_ listen to me and get away from him.”

Tommy scoffs and crosses his arms. Tubbo swears under his breath, he knows that look.

“No.”

“Tommy!” Tubbo shouts and Tommy flinches harshly. He sighs heavily, composes himself and tries again. “Sorry, just – please, for once, just trust me, okay? Can you…” He trails off, shakes his head. “No, you don’t need to even trust me – just _listen_ to me, okay? Just get away from him, please? Tommy?”

Tommy still doesn’t budge, Dream is silent, but Tubbo can still see that wide grin, there only for him to see. The forest begins to tint red again and Tubbo’s certain that this time, it’s not from the flickering torchlight (how can there be torchlight in weather like this?). Dream’s _mocking_ him.

“Tubbo will only hurt you more, Tommy,” Dream drawls, as though the axe pressed against his throat, ready to swing at any given moment, simply isn’t there. “He’s already done it once.”

“I know,” says Tommy bitterly.

Dream turns his head to face Tommy; the red line extends along the side of his neck and the rain trickles it down. Tubbo’s arms are beginning to faintly tremble, as are his legs.

“Tommy’s my friend, I’m not just about to let him get exiled for a _third_ time,” Dream says lightly, and puts his hands in his pockets, casual. He looks back at Tubbo, just as he says, “He’d rather die than go back – y’know, he told me that himself.” He pauses, head tilting, and then the fucker _smiles_ , he can feel it – he can feel it with every bone in his body – before he even speaks;

“Oh, you didn’t know?”

Tubbo’s vision bleeds crimson as he yells. He’s not sure what, he’s not sure what he’d hoped to say, all he knows is that he’s pulling back, the axe drawn back behind his head. Dream lowers his stance, bracing for impact and in the haze, Tubbo doesn’t even notice that his shield is drawn. He swings the axe down in a wide arc and –

“ _NO_!”

Embeds it straight into Tommy’s forearm. 

Tubbo falls out of the world and falls back in, again and again and again, as he stares at his axe. For a earth-shattering moment, no one dares to move and the only sound to be heard is the rain as it floods over Tubbo’s weapon – _Tubbo’s weapon_ in _Tommy’s arm_.

Tubbo chokes on his scream, his movements forgotten as he loses the meaning of his fight. He can’t get himself to move, not even to pull out the axe, where it’s stuck halfway through the centre of Tommy’s arm. His hands are shaking too much.

His mind whirs a torrent of noise as he sees the spurting of blood, too violent and harsh to be a vein, and Tommy’s yelling, telling him to back off. His words are cut off as Dream shoves him aside, forcefully _wrenching_ the axe out of Tubbo’s grip and eliciting a guttural, agonising scream as the weapon tears apart the tissue and muscle.

Dream’s own axe comes swinging up, not a sound from the man on the other end, but Tubbo doesn’t see him – he only sees Tommy, who’s trying to pull the axe out, trying to muffle the pain rushing down his arm and lodged in his chest.

“Tommy! Tommy, don’t!” Tubbo shrieks, stumbling towards him as he watches his friend try to pull the axe again and again. Dream kicks him in the stomach and Tubbo falls with a cough.

“You’ve done enough, Tubbo,” he says as he stands above him, trying to sound pitying, but Tubbo ignores him, screaming for Tommy to _stop, stop, please, stop!_ The axe slices the air in half as he brings it down and it’s only then that Tubbo looks up, breath caught and he squeezes his eyes shut in preparation, the axe inches away from his –

There’s a whistle as something soars through the wind and Dream spits a curse, the axe head falling straight into the sand beside Tubbo’s head. He opens his eyes and pays Dream’s pained hisses no mind, the man’s hand around the arrow in his wrist. Instead, he reflexively grabs a handful of whatever he can get his hands on, throwing it straight into his face. 

The sand billows out like a glittering cloud of stones and fibreglass. Dream sputters and shouts in a mix of pain and frustration.

Tubbo kicks him off and scrambles to his feet to get to Tommy. Tommy, who’s already gathered up in Phil’s arms as Techno fires another arrow at Dream. This time, it hits his left shoulder.

“Put pressure on his arm – he needs to –” Tubbo stops when he sees the cloth fastened tightly around Tommy’s arm, bled through and stained maroon. If there’s some comfort in what stands before him, it’s that Tommy seems to be unconscious. 

“Hurry up!” Techno grunts as he readies his crossbow for another shot. Dream’s stands and is seething; his apathetic smile turns Tubbo’s spine to ice. Phil wastes no time, his wings spread and with a strong flap, is brought to the air. 

“Uh,” says Tubbo as he watches their retreating backs.

“Come _on_ ,” says Technoblade and pulls him onto his horse’s back, right behind him. Tubbo can’t even think of a single thing to say as the horse rears up with an agitated whinny and begins to bolt.

“You’ve gone back on your word!” shouts Dream in the wind behind them. Despite the lashing rain, cutting into his skin and his clothes and leeching warmth, he can hear every word Dream yells clearly. Tubbo jumps, turns and expects to see green and a mask right beside him.

But, Dream is still standing where he’d nearly beheaded Tubbo and taken Tommy. In the short moments where neither hair nor rain obscures his gaze, he catches Dream staring straight at him, yanking the arrow out of his shoulder. He laughs, loud and rising, and it sends a pit straight into Tubbo’s stomach. “You fucking _idiot_! You know what this means?”

Tubbo knows exactly what it means, he knows exactly what might arise from his actions if he took Tommy back to the nation – to his people, had known from the very start. He also knows that Dream is being an absolute _moron_ at the moment, because Tubbo’s _not_ taking Tommy back to l’Manberg or even the SMP for that matter. 

He’d thought this through, dammit, and no matter how much it hurt to leave Tommy here, he knew that Techno’s place (despite their differences) was the next best thing as long as he had to fend for himself out here.

So, no, he wasn’t going back on his word – he was _fixing_ the damage his damn “word” had caused in the first place.

Techno glances over his shoulder as Dream’s laughter fades along with the beach and the forest and Tubbo’s crudely-made boat. He glances down, before turning away with a frown.

“Just so you know, I’m _not_ getting involved in another war,” he says at the sign of the small smile on Tubbo’s face. There’s a soft snort from behind him as Tubbo watches the ocean disappear over the mountainside. “Let alone against _that_ guy.”

“Lucky for you,” says Tubbo and spits hair out of his mouth, “there won’t be another war, you’ll see. Besides, as colourful as it is, I don’t fancy being blown to bits by fireworks again.” He rubs the scar blooming from the centre of his face at the thought and Techno winces.

“Sorry,” he says quietly. He gets no response, there is nothing he has to say back. Techno doesn’t look for one anyway.

Tubbo slumps forward, forehead against the cloak on Techno’s back, and though just the sound of the man’s voice causes his heart to begin beating painfully, the smell of gunpowder comes second only to the smell of seawater.

As they flee from Logstedshire, back into the cover of the snow and the wind, Tubbo’s mind is a cacophony, but most of the noise is centred and his mind keeps replaying the conversation he’d just had, on torturous loop.

_He’d rather die than go back – y’know, he told me that himself._

*

“Tubbo, what happened? God, he’s – he’s bleeding everywhere.” Phil’s pressing straight down onto Tommy’s arm as he talks. “Techno, get me a regen pot.” Silence. “Techno,” he glances over his shoulder, but Techno’s outside with Carl and it’s only Tubbo that meets his gaze. “Regen, first chest on the top downstairs.”

“U-uh, right,” says Tubbo.

His arms and legs are shaky and he nearly slips a total of three times on the way down and another two on the way back up. Phil wastes no time in propping Tommy up and holding out his hand.

“There was a healing one too, so I…” he hands the aforementioned potion over and Phil nods. Tommy’s eyes are still closed, his skin much too pale, but Phil still pushes the bottleneck into his mouth and tilts it back.

Tubbo’s back tenses like a coiled spring as Phil whispers for Tommy to _please, swallow, don’t choke, don’t choke_. The potion goes down with a quiet cough, and Tubbo takes his hand when he hisses out inaudible words.

“It’s okay. You’re okay, Tommy.” He’s said them so many times before that they come almost as second nature. Tommy chokes out a hushed shout, before he sighs and relaxes against the stretcher.

“The bleeding’s stopped,” informs Phil and Tubbo turns to see him peering beneath the gauze he’d been pressing firmly against the gaping wound in his arm. He glances towards Tubbo, raises the regen potion with a small smile, and says, “Can you go make this a splash potion real quick? I’m gonna check if anything else is injured.”

_Like bones_ , goes unsaid. It seems like a fairly gruesome thing to witness, to Tubbo takes the out, no questions asked, and hurries down the ladder.

It only takes 20 minutes to have Tommy in a relatively stable condition, where he’s no longer tensing all the muscles in his body every two minutes. But it’s a stressful 20 minutes nonetheless, so it ends up feeling like a full _day_ has passed by the time Tommy is quiet.

Tubbo doesn’t move away from the tableside once the splash potion is administered, already back to rubbing circles into the back of Tommy’s clammy hand. The bandage on his arm stays stained a faint pink and he can’t stop thanking whatever deity lives up there that he hadn’t permanently fucked up his friend’s arm.

He spends the time, sat on the edge of the table, idly running his fingers down his hair, nails scratching lightly against skin. It’s a habit Tubbo had gotten from – well, he _thinks_ it’s from Wilbur. Usually, at least, back when they were only kids, it had been a relatively easy process; brush it out from his eyes and away from his forehead – that’s it. 

But his hair has grown too long, tangled into knots and clumped together against his forehead and the table, and when Tubbo tries to comb his fingers through it, he can’t even get halfway down before it snags and Tommy’s brows furrow.

“Sorry,” he mutters and pulls back.

“We’ll have to cut it when he wakes up,” Phil says from where he’s sat in front of the fireplace, back facing the hearth and drying off his wings. Tubbo winces. If it had been snowing heavier or if the house had been further out… “He used to throw a tantrum as a child about how much it bothered him when it got in his eyes.” Phil looks over to where Tommy lay, emotion undiscernible from his face. “Now, it’s fallen past even that.”

*

Phil brings him into his bedroom when he can no longer fight off closing his eyes and his head bobs every other minute. He offers to set up a makeshift bed on the floor, but Tubbo refuses, stating that he won’t be able to sleep that night anyway. 

And because it’s Phil, he isn’t immediately placed into an argument that he can’t win, and is instead, asked to wait a moment as he beckons him to the wardrobe. Tubbo fidgets nervously as Phil rummages through stacks upon stacks of neatly folded clothes, creasing and tossing them into disarray. It kind of hurts to watch.

After a moment, he finally emerges with a long piece of cloth woven from wool. Tubbo accepts it, but can’t figure out a reason as to why. He stares down at it in confusion.

“Um…”

“You left your stuff back at the island,” Phil says easily as he closes the wardrobe door. He ties it around Tubbo’s shoulders, pulling it taut until he’s sufficiently warm. “Don’t lose this one too.”

Something rises up in Tubbo’s chest and it’s warm, so very warm, to the brink of being hot. He blinks and looks down, hands fisting in his clothes as he fights back the sting in his eyes. But Phil’s looking at him patiently, his hand buried in his hair to ruffle it fondly.

His lips purse around the words he wants to say, but they never come. Phil doesn’t need to hear them to know how he feels anyway, and he pats his shoulder before leaning back. What he says before leaving has that feeling in his chest swelling, his teeth biting into his lip as it trembles, his grip tightening.

“You did great, Tubbo.”

Techno’s sat by the fireplace when Tubbo returns to check up on Tommy. There’s a book in his hand and glasses perched on his nose, but he still glances up as Tubbo moves towards Tommy’s side.

“Hasn’t woken up once,” he tells him, face buried back into the pages of his book.

Tommy’s hands and face are cold, his breathing shallow, but the clean bandages wrapped tightly around his arm are still relatively clean, so Tubbo allows himself to relax. Techno turns a page.

“Did you ever visit him?” asks Tubbo and looks towards him. He’s not sure what he’s hoping to hear, only that he’s hoping to hear _something_. Maybe for ease on his conscious. Maybe just to drive him up the wall a little more at his inadequate self. 

Techno’s eyes don’t move along the pages, they stay fixated on one spot, but he doesn’t look up. “Sometimes,” he says after a pause. The page turns.

“Oh.” Tubbo turns back to the table and unties the cloth Phil had given him to lay atop Tommy. “How… how long?”

“How long what?”

“How long has he hated me for?” Tubbo asks once he finds the nerve to do so. He doesn’t want to know the answer, but he needs to hear it. The part of him that yearns to hear it is grossly sick, but he can’t help but indulge, just a little. He stares down at his feet; there’s a hole in one of his socks and the stitched patch on the other is peeling off.

_You don’t just fucking exile your friends!_

Techno hums and flips another page. 

“I don’t think he ever really did,” he says and nothing in his voice indicates a lie.

Tubbo breathes a small, pathetic noise and puts his head in his hands. The fire crackles in the background, Tommy’s breathing is still shallow, and Tubbo is shaking. Because it’s so horrible, it’s so terrible for Tommy to not resent him for throwing him to the wolves. 

“That’s such bull,” he says into his palms. He means it.

“Mm, maybe,” says Techno noncommittedly and turns the page. “But you asked.”

*

The rest of the day carries on as usual, with Techno leaving just before sunset to get started on cooking; Phil is absent from the house and Tubbo assumes he’s outside, tending to the farms.

It takes a long while for Tubbo to leave Tommy’s side ( _“I don’t want him to wake up alone, you know?”_ ), but he can’t just stand and do nothing as the world continues on around him. He pulls the cloak a little higher, until it reaches Tommy’s chin, and goes to start packing.

He knows the longer he stays here, especially with Tommy, the more danger he’ll be putting both the nation and his family in. He also knows that the longer he stays, the harder it’ll be to leave.

He hadn’t brought much, though he wishes he could’ve at least brough his coat back with him – it had been quite the thoughtful gift, but he reckons Ranboo will understand once Tubbo explains the situation. He’ll still have to do something to make it up to him, however. He knows Ranboo will probably protest it, but, well, Tubbo supposes with all the time he’s spent with Tommy, at least _some_ of his stubbornness has to have rubbed off.

Phil pokes his head in a while later, and though Tubbo doesn’t miss the way he glances over to his bag, he only tells him that dinner is ready and leaves again. Tubbo decides that he’s gotten everything he needs for the trip back anyway.

He’s just about halfway across the floor to go down to the kitchen, when there’s a quiet, near-inaudible whisper.

“Tubbo?”

He almost misses it. He’d stopped to glance at the fireplace and he’d almost missed it. He turns and his eyes meet Tommy’s, from where he’s still on the table, half-sat up with his good arm propping him up.

He doesn’t look angry or scared or disgusted. Actually, he really only looks confused. Tubbo doesn’t know what he thinks in that moment, doesn’t know if he says anything or if he even tries. His heart beats, alive, but it’s the only thing to stir within Tubbo.

How fucked up is it that he can’t even bring himself to feel overwhelmingly relieved at the sight of his friend? 

Tommy draws the cloth around his shoulders, cold, and frowns down at his bandaged arm. “The fuck happened? Why’s it freezing? Why’re you crying?”

Crying? Tubbo’s not crying?

He wipes his eyes, mostly to see if Tommy was seeing things, but it comes away wet. _Strange,_ he thinks as he stiffly makes his way over to the makeshift stretcher. Tommy’s face swims and won’t stay put in his vision. He can’t tell what he’s feeling, what he’s doing.

“How do you feel?” Tubbo asks, his voice millions of miles away from him. The red and blue and yellow smudge that is Tommy moves. 

“Great. I feel absolutely _peachy_ , Tubbo – what kind of stupid question is that?”

Tubbo breathes a small, disingenuous laugh; “Oh, sorry.”

And then Tommy’s giving a surprised noise as Tubbo hugs him. He doesn’t remember leaning forward, or raising his arms, or anything really. But he does feel Tommy’s startled laugh, hot air against his neck, as he freezes up. 

It’s awkward, and the table corner digs into his leg, and the emotions crash down on him, too many and too sudden to feel anything other than an overwhelming urge to cry. So he does, hiding his face into his shoulder, because Tommy’s okay, he’s okay.

“Woah, okay! You, uhh, you good, big man?” he asks when Tubbo doesn’t let go. _He’s safe safe safe safe safe –_

“Yeah,” he croaks, hiccupping into Tommy’s shoulder and his grip only tightens when Tommy finally hugs him back. There’s a weak noise, something that lies between a laugh and a sob. He doesn’t know if it comes from Tommy or if it comes from himself. It doesn’t matter, anyway, because he’s got Tommy here and Dream’s nowhere near and it’s so, _so_ very warm.

*

Tubbo moves from just standing awkwardly by the tableside to sitting on it, the cloths Phil had draped over Tommy now also draped over him. The night’s grown cold, the fire dying down with neglect, but Tubbo doesn’t feel it with Tommy beside him. 

Tommy keeps mentioning that his head is still spinning and he spaces out a lot as they talk, but he’s also chatty and laughs a lot, so Tubbo chalks it up to the blood loss and thinks nothing more on it. What he can’t ignore, however, is the heaviness in the air. Tubbo feels the pit in his stomach as he stares at the bandage wrapped tightly around Tommy’s arm. Tommy himself refuses to look anywhere near it, eyes darting away whenever they drift too close.

He doesn’t want to ask, but the elephant in the room is looming over Tommy’s shoulder, staring down with eyes that eat up his entire world. Tubbo feels sweat drip down the side of his face as his smile falters.

“Hey, so… uh, what happened – with Dream?” he asks, trying to play it off as less of a deal than he actually feels it is, but his casual tone only comes out sounding undeniably forced. Tommy rocks forward, and in a split-second, the tension falls between the two, stifling and hot.

“Oh god, Dream… I left him all alone – I _left_ Dream, Tubbo,” Tommy says, running his hands through his hair. He tugs at it a little, and it takes Tubbo pulling them away to make him stop. 

“He was the only one there for me this entire time and I just…. I just…” A pause, Tommy shies away from his touch and curls into himself, arms wrapped tightly around his knees. He looks so small, eyes misty, and it breaks Tubbo’s heart. “He’s going to kill me, he’s _going_ to.”

“Was he really your only friend,” Tubbo says. _Surely not,_ he thinks as he watches Tommy fall into deep thought, brows knit and silent. The man behind _all_ of the disasters of their land? The man who’d torn apart their nation and laughed as though it were nothing? _Surely not. Surely he wouldn’t._

_He’s fine – I left him with some food and some armour, he’ll be fine._

_Tommy? Oh, he’s doing well. He’s coming around to the simpler life; I think he might actually be happier._

_He’d rather die than go back – y’know, he told me that himself._

Surely not.

“I think he was a friend? I mean, I _thought_ he was, anyway, but… I don’t know – Was he? Was he? I – I – Oh God… What do I –”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry – you don’t need to talk about it,” Tubbo had said, feeling absolutely awful when Tommy starts hyperventilating, eyes unfocused and returning to pulling on his hair. Tubbo leans down, dragging up the cloak to cover them both. “Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay.”

“Yeah, I…”

“You’re okay.”

“Hey… Tubbo?”

“Mm-hm?”

“Where… where were you?” 

The words are asked in such a small voice, it sounds nothing and everything like Tommy at the same time. Tubbo stiffens, eyes stuck staring at Tommy’s face and he suddenly feels like he’s very, very far away. Tommy looks back at him, steady and uncertain.

_Where_ had _he been?_

There’s no good excuse, none that he can come up with. None that will be reason enough for what he’d done to Tommy. Tubbo averts his eyes, his head prickles painfully and his throat feels swollen, pinched. 

“I’m sor –”

“Stop apologising all the time,” Tommy says, but there’s no bite in his words. When Tubbo turns to look at him, surprised, he finds the crease beneath his eye and the furrow to his brow. Then, because it’s Tommy, he rolls his eyes and looks away – despite his best efforts, Tubbo still catches the embarrassed tilt to the corner of his lip. “C’mon, there’s gotta be a reason why.”

Tubbo opens his mouth, but then Tommy looks at him and he looks so fucking tired. The apology dies on his tongue and he swallows his apprehension. Tubbo turns away and picks at the patterns woven into the cloth. They’re quite pretty, he thinks, blue snowflakes.

“I… I mean, after l’Manberg was blown up – We still had a lot to repair, and the costs with that were already… And we were short on people – We’d lost _so_ much. Then you… you added to it; again and again, even when I told you, even when I _begged_ you to stop, you…” Tubbo sighs, drags a hand down his face, and pushes on. “There was just so much going on, Tommy. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.

“I should’ve done something sooner – negotiated better terms for the agreement, or come up with a better solution altogether. I honestly don’t know, but at the time… At the time, I thought it was the best I could do – the best I could do for the nation we’d worked _so hard_ to build, to _protect_.”

Tubbo’s rambling now, he knows he is, but he can’t stop. He hiccups down a breath, scrubs at his eyes and grumbles in annoyance at the moisture that comes away. 

“We _died_ for l’Manberg, Tommy. We have _scars_ from _dying_ for l’Manberg, Tommy. I just –” He has to stop himself, he can’t go on – he’ll come apart if he does, fall right apart like a poorly-built house of cards in a hurricane. He sighs, puts his head in his hands, and counts to fifteen.

Tommy is silent, but he still pulls Tubbo in a little closer, pulls the wool a little higher. 

When Tubbo closes his eyes, he’ll sometimes see the bright burst of colour, the loud crackle of gunpowder exploding; sometimes, he’ll see a pair of eyes and a wide, wide smile on a white canvas, staring out at him from the deepest recesses of his nightmares. 

Sometimes, what he sees when he closes his eyes is terrifying and all he wants to do is curl up and hope that he dissolves into the air around him, never to be seen again.

But when his eyes are closed in that moment, with his rasping breaths and Tommy’s wordless comfort, he sees rolling hills of green and yellow buttercups, the view from atop the bench, with a melody instead of stifling air, and Tommy beside him. And they’re sixteen again, or maybe fourteen or twelve.

He wants to say that he’s missed him so much that it’s torn him up inside, shredding him until anything he ate slipped right out, until the food on his plate became tasteless like sand. Until he couldn’t find it in him to breathe, to live, before seeing him again.

He wants to say that he’s grateful for him, so fucking grateful, that he feels like bursting. He wants to take everything Tommy had given him and return it tenfold – no, a hundredfold, maybe even a thousandfold. Wants to say how it drives him to be willing of throwing himself in harm’s way, into the deepest pit of lava, if it meant even the slightest chance of Tubbo being able to return it.

But he can’t find the right words.

In the end, he can only hope that he can convey even a fraction of his thoughts through how tightly he holds onto Tommy, how he’s there to calm him down whenever he wakes in a cold sweat, breathing uneven and shaky as he begs for Dream to _no, no, no, please don’t – I didn’t mean to – I was just – I’m sorry_ in a mantra until he’s calmed down enough to remember where he is – _who_ he is.

Sometimes, he’ll roll over, grimace, and then mumble out Wilbur’s name. Tubbo can only listen, waiting for when the fervent whispering stops, when the pinch of his brow smooths out. And it hurts, because Tubbo can’t do anything.

He can’t ever do anything good for Tommy, but, he hopes that, just this once, he’s finally done something right. Because deep down, he just wants Tommy to not hate him too. 


End file.
